


Nevermore

by Merinnan



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Genre: 3zun - Freeform, Aged Up Juniors, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone is an idiot, Flashbacks, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Light Angst, Loss, M/M, Misunderstandings, No beta we die like wwx, Oblivious, Past Character Death, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, angry grape is angry, i laugh in the face of regular updating so don't expect that sorry, seriously where the fuck did all their brain cells go, the tropes are hungry and must be fed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22874911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merinnan/pseuds/Merinnan
Summary: Once, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were an excited pair of brothers, recently accepted into the Pan Pacific Defence Force's Jaeger program and determined to become rangers fighting against any kaiju coming out of the Breach. Then Wei Wuxian vanished, leaving Jiang Cheng without a Drift partner.Four years later, Jiang Cheng is the hard-ass trainer of ranger hopefuls at the PPDC's Shanghai facility, still without a chance at piloting his own jaeger as no-one dares Drift with him and be exposed to the anger he displays every day. Then he's asked to help screen and find a new partner for Lan Xichen, a quiet and gentle ranger just now ready to return to duty after tragically losing his original co-pilots in their last combat...
Relationships: Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín & Wēn Qíng, Jiāng Chéng | Jiāng Wǎnyín/Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén & Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Lán Huàn | Lán Xīchén/Mèng Yáo | Jīn Guāngyáo/Niè Míngjué (historical), Lán Jǐngyí & Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī, Sòng Lán | Sòng Zǐchēn/Xiǎo Xīngchén (background)
Comments: 134
Kudos: 280





	1. Chapter 1

Humanity always thought alien life would come from the stars…but it came from beneath the sea.

A fissure between two tectonic plates in the Pacific Ocean. A portal between dimensions, one that would come to be known simply as The Breach.

Jiang Cheng was 14 when the first kaiju came through the Breach and made landfall in San Francisco. By the time tanks, jets, and missiles took it down, six days and thirty five miles later, three cities were destroyed and tens of thousands of lives lost.

In the safety of their home in Lotus Pier, half a world away, Jiang Cheng and his family could only watch the footage in horror, and join the world in the collective sigh of relief when the skyscraper-high monster was finally killed.

Then, five months later, another kaiju came from the Breach and laid waste to Hong Kong. Eight months later, a third destroyed Sydney.

This was the point when the world came together to find a better way to fight these creatures than just nuking their own cities. The best and brightest from around the world worked ceaselessly, culminating in the Jaeger Project – a way for two humans to merge their brains into a single supercomputer, more powerful than any silicon chips, in order to control the giant battle robots created specifically to fight and defeat the kaiju before they could make landfall.

Once ready for use, the Jaeger program was born.

Just before their sixteenth birthdays Jiang Cheng’s adopted brother, Wei Wuxian, came charging into his room, waving a printout of the article announcing both the program, and that recruitment was now open. As soon as he was able to make sense of his brother’s excited words, Jiang Cheng met Wei Wuxian’s eyes, and in that instant they both knew.

As soon as they were old enough, they would join the program together.

**~~~**

Whatever dreams he might have been having were cut through by the sound of a shrill ringing. Jiang Cheng groaned, pulling his pillow over his head in an effort to block the noise it. It paused momentarily, then began again.

He tried throwing his pillow at the phone, but in his sleepy state the pillow fell short, and he finally gave in and answered the call.

“Rise and shine, Wanyin!” came the far-too-cheerful voice on the other end. Jiang Cheng groaned again.

“Fuck off, Choi. What do you want?”

“What, it isn’t enough to say good morning to my favourite grouch?”

“Not at 4 fucking am. This better be good, or I’m going to break your fucking legs next time I’m in Alaska.”

On the other end of the line, Tendo Choi just laughed. “It just hasn’t been the same here since you left to help Lan Qiren set up the secondary training facility at Shanghai. We no longer have to live in fear of broken legs. Not from you, anyway.”

Jiang Cheng desperately wished he hadn’t thrown his pillow after all. At least then he could put it back over his head in an effort to go back to sleep while Tendo babbled. The man was almost as bad as…

…as…

He closed his eyes, punching the headboard of the bed. As someone he didn’t want to think about at 4am. Or ever, if it came to that.

“Point. Get to it before I hang up and turn the fucking phone off.”

“Fine, fine. Latest bunch of recruits for your lot have just left. They should get to you mid afternoon.”

“This couldn’t have wa…” His complaints were cut off by Tendo, long used to dealing with him, simply not stopping to let him speak.

“Bit of a mix this time. The usual greenies that Kodiak Island doesn’t have room for, plus a bunch who’ve passed the first cut, and then also the ones who are almost ready to go that Marshal Lan wanted. Something about a ranger who needs a new co-pilot?”

“…huh?” Ranger? Co-pilot? Had Lan Qiren mentioned that at all? His eyes fell on the pile of briefing notes that MianMian had shoved at him yesterday as he was returning from the training grounds. Speaking of…

Climbing out of bed, Jiang Cheng retrieved his pillow before burrowing back under his blanket, and cutting off Tendo’s follow up explanation which he was ignoring.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Call MianMian and wake _her_ up. I’m going back to sleep.”

With that, he hung up and put his pillow over his head, determined to ignore anything else.

**~~~**

_“Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!”_ _The familiar, exuberant shouting is capped off with the expected body slam from a red and black blur, Jiang Cheng having just enough time to brace himself for it before reaching around to put the culprit – his brother – into a headlock._

_“Aaah! Jiang Cheng, let me gooooo! A-Jie, make him stop!” Wei Wuxian whines, flailing piteously and trying to give their sister Jiang Yanli his best puppy-dog eyes, as if he wasn’t Jiang Cheng’s match at pretty much everything, including wrestling._

_“A-Xian, you started it,” Jiang Yanli chides gently, dropping back to walk next to her brothers. “A-Cheng, let him go now.”_

_“Yes, A-Jie,” the pair chorus, Jiang Cheng finally releasing his brother – although not before firmly rubbing knuckles against the top of his head, eliciting more mock-whining. Straightening up, Wei Wuxian pouts at him, before slipping back to his usual cheerful grin and waving papers at him before shoving them into his hands._

_“Look, look!”_

_Jiang Cheng looks down, trying to make sense of what’s just been shoved into his hands. He registers the logo first – the logo of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps. Then his name._

_“Is this….?!” He shakes the letter out, skimming it quickly._

_“Yes!” Wei Wuxian grins at him, then at their sister. “We got into the Jaeger program! We’re gonna pilot a jaeger together!”_

_“If we pass…”_

_“Ah, don’t be like that, Jiang Cheng. Of course we’re gonna pass! You and me, we’re gonna be the best team of them all!”_

**~~~**

Whatever dreams he might have been having were cut through by the sound of an alarm buzzing. Opening one bleary eye, Jiang Cheng glared at the numbers blinking at him. 6:30. With a groan, a not-so-muffled curse, and a silent vow that he was definitely breaking Tendo’s legs the next time he saw him, he wiped the wetness out of his eyes and crawled out of bed to get ready for another day.


	2. Chapter 2

7am found Jiang Cheng in the mess hall, barely-touched breakfast pushed to one side in favour of black coffee and the briefing notes he really had intended to go through last night. That he really should have gone through last night, he now realised, as they’re not all just the usual updates on recruits and Academy operations.

Some of them are, of course, like the notes on the new recruits arriving later today, the notification that Zizhen had dropped out of the program – unsurprising, he didn’t think the kid would have lasted as long as he did – and the schedule for the next ‘surprise’ drill.

The next one was about Nie Huaisang commandeering his afternoon class to run through some new anti-kaiju tactics with them. He was just glaring at that one when another tray clinked on the table across from him. Barely glancing up from the notes in front of him, Jiang Cheng picked up the currently-offending one and waved it at one of the only people in the facility who’d dare join him when he has _that_ scowl on his face.

“Couldn’t he have given me more fucking notice than eight hours?” he demanded. The paper is plucked from his hands, smoothed out, and put back on the pile.

“He gave you 24 hours,” MianMian said calmly. “ _You_ just didn’t read it until now.”

An even deeper scowl was the response to that. “He has his own scheduled classes, why does he have to take one of mine as well? These recruits are _supposed_ to be…”

“…learning how to fight kaiju,” MianMian interrupted, and moved the notes out of the way so she could push his breakfast tray “which is his job as much as it is ours. Eat something, Wanyin, you’re in an even fouler mood than usual.”

“And you’re far too cheerful for someone who also got woken up at 4am,” he grumbled, adding some more seasoning to the congee. Not as much as his brother would…he shoved that thought away before it finished. “Unless I was the only one Choi wanted to harass.”

“…what did Tendo want at 4am?”

“To let me know the next lot of recruits were on their way.” It’s not until halfway through a mouthful of food that he remembered what else Tendo had said, and quickly swallowed. “And he’s sending us some cadets who are almost field ready. Something about someone needing a new co-pilot?”

He studied MianMian as she shrugged. “Huh. I haven’t heard anything about that – although I’m surprised you haven’t, either. Seems like the sort of thing Marshal Lan would get your input on, given how many pairings you’ve successfully predicted.”

Jiang Cheng ignored that in favour of eating. Yes, it seemed he could pick the right Drift partner for anyone except himself. If he was honest with himself, it stung a little bit that people took one look at how prickly he was and avoided even an attempt, but…

He cut off his own thoughts with a snort, and glanced up at MianMian finishing her breakfast – how _did_ that woman manage to eat so fast? – just before she rose to her feet. “I’ll leave you to finish eating, and finish your reading,” she said, waving at both his tray and the notes. “See you in a bit.”

He went back to eating with a grunt that might have been a ‘later’, finishing the congee without really tasting it before reading the final two briefing notes. Of course – o _f course_ – he should have read these ones first.

**~~~**

Jiang Cheng stopped by the combat room briefly to let MianMian know she was on her own with the recruits this morning, which didn’t seem to surprise her. As he walked away, he wondered if she’d read through his briefings before giving them to him yesterday. She always did seem to know when something was coming up that was going to cause him more stress or annoyance than usual.

Pausing in front of Marshal Lan’s door, he checked that he looked presentable, and as professional as possible given he was in his usual day-to-day attire of regulation blue pants and white t-shirt, his shoulder length hair pulled up into a reasonably tidy bun. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure where his dress uniform _was_. Well. He supposed the Marshal wasn’t going to be fussed that his fightmaster was dressed for physical activity rather than for meetings with his superior officer.

He rapped on the door, slipping inside when he heard the call to enter moments later. Inside, Marshal Lan Qiren stood in front of his desk, immaculate in a dark navy suit and light blue shirt, the thin white ribbon around his forehead not even a fraction of an inch crooked. Seated in one of the chairs in front of his desk was a familiar woman just as immaculately dressed in a black suit and red shirt.

Jiang Cheng immediately regretted not taking the time to find his dress uniform.

Trying to hide his embarrassment at being so underdressed in comparison, he crossed the room and executed a crisp salute to Lan Qiren. “Marshal Lan,” he said in greeting, then turned to nod to the woman. “Wen-yisheng.”

Wen Qing simply glanced at him, but Lan Qiren gave him a nod of acknowledgement before going to sit behind his desk. “Jiang Wanyin. Please take a seat.”

Jiang Cheng saluted again, then took the seat next to Wen Qing. Lan Qiren studied them both for a moment.

“I assume you both have some idea what this meeting is about?”

Wen Qing nodded, and Jiang Cheng cleared his throat. “Not really, Marshal Lan, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the jaeger that’s arriving here next week.” Despite his attempts to seem calm, he was tense and he knew it. His fingers curled around his knee. He really wished he’d read that briefing note earlier so that he could have had some more time to be more composed before this meeting. He knew the name of that jaeger only too well, even if he’d never seen it in person.

“Correct.” Lan Qiren’s voice broke through his thoughts and he looked up, trying to force his fingers to relax and straighten out. “Purple Lightning has been out of commission since it took out Malerax here in Shanghai four years ago. While it was repaired some time ago, its surviving pilot has been unable to return to duty until now.”

There was almost a catch in his voice as he said that, one that Jiang Cheng perhaps would have noticed if he hadn’t been distracted by his own memories, and by the comment itself.

“…surviving pilot? Forgive me, Marshal, but I’d heard that both of Purple Lightning’s pilots died taking down Malerax?”

“Two of them did,” Wen Qing said, in her own abrupt way. “Purple Lightning had three pilots.”

Three. He blinked. That was a highly rare occurrence.

 _That ranger lost two people to Malerax as well,_ said a little voice in his mind, one which he pushed aside again. Today was not the time to think about the past, even if the past seemed determined to push into his current life. He simply nodded slowly, waiting for Lan Qiren to continue.

The Marshal glanced from one of them to the other, stroking his beard as he waited for their full attention, which they quickly gave him. He gave them both another small nod.

“Now that Lan Xichen is ready to return to duty, Purple Lightning is being sent to us from Hong Kong to be based here,” he said. Jiang Cheng blinked again. Lan? He wondered if it was any relation.

“Lan Xichen will need a new co-pilot,” Lan Qiren continued. “We don’t expect another three-way Drift, so Purple Lightning has been refitted to the standard two pilots. You two…” He studied them for a moment. “As Shanghai’s psych analysist, Wen-yisheng, you will of course be evaluating Lan Xichen and those cadets who are unpaired and ready to become full rangers to identify potential matches based on their psych profiles.”

Wen Qing nods, and Lan Qiren looked at Jiang Cheng. “Jiang Wanyin, you’re most familiar with the fighting abilities of the cadets, and how they perform in the simulated combat situations. I’m also well aware of your ability to identify which pairs will Drift well together before they even step into a CONN-pod. You’ll work with Wen-yisheng and Lan Xichen to help identify potential matches from that perspective.”

Jiang Cheng nodded. “Of course, Marshal.”

“Wen-yisheng, the psych profiles of Lan Xichen, our own cadets here, and the cadets that are on their way from Alaska should already be in your office. Jiang Wanyin, the training and test score evaluations of the Alaska cadets, and both the training and live operation evaluations of Lan Xichen, are here for you to take with you.” Lan Qiren placed his hand on a stack of folders on his desk. “I’m sure that Luo Qingyang is well able to fill in for you in leading the trainee classes while you work on this.”

It wasn’t a question, and Jiang Cheng didn’t have any hestitation about nodding. Of course MianMian was capable of running the classes herself for a week or two while he and Wen Qing found a new co-pilot for this Lan Xichen.

He didn’t expect it to take any longer than that. After all, how complicated could it be?


	3. Chapter 3

Hours later, Jiang Cheng leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He’d started with Lan Xichen’s file, and he had to admit it was impressive. His test results right through the Academy were high, and shot even higher once he began working with Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao, the two who became his co-pilots for Purple Lightning. Jiang Chen had gone over the result records twice, studying the consistent improvement, then had put in a request for Nie Mingjue and Meng Yao’s records. Having a better idea of Lan Xichen’s former co-pilots couldn’t hurt. He idly wondered if Nie Mingjue was any relation to Nie Huaisang. Huaisang didn't talk about his family much, only that his older brother had practically raised him, and that he'd joined the PPDC after said brother had died in a kaiju attack. 

From there, he looked through everything in the file about Purple Lightning’s combat history. It had assisted in taking down Kappa in Osaka, then gone on to defeat Primados in Taipei. Both victories had been hard-fought, but Purple Lightning and its pilots had come through with relatively non-severe injuries and damage. This was where Jiang Cheng now found himself pausing, reaching out for his coffee to take a sip. He grimaced at how cold it had gone, then stood and stretched before pacing around the office and contemplating getting a fresh drink.

His eyes fell on the open file on his desk. He wasn’t avoiding reading about Purple Lightning’s last combat four years ago. Of course not. No-one would ever even dream that Jiang Wanyin, the notoriously bad-tempered and hard-ass fightmaster of the Shanghai Academy, would ever be _nervous_ about reading a combat report and evaluation.

And he wasn’t nervous. Or afraid. He just…needed a break from reading for the moment. He paced around some more, half tempted to go out and see how MianMian was doing with the trainees, then stopped and swore at himself.

“Stop being a fucking idiot, Jiang Cheng,” he muttered, and dropped back into his seat. “Just get it over with.”

So saying, he pulled the file back towards him to read the final section. Purple Lightning’s fight against Malerax in Shanghai, four years ago.

~~~

_Jiang Cheng yawned as he made his way through the Seattle terminal, trying to balance going fast enough to not miss his connecting flight to Anchorage with not actually falling asleep on his feet. This trip to get to the PPDC Academy would have been far less boring if Wei Wuxian had actually travelled with him from Shanghai, rather than first going to Beijing to meet up with some old school friends and leaving from there. Then again, if Wei Wuxian had been travelling with him, he wouldn’t have got any sleep at all on that last flight from Tokyo._

_As he shuffled through the queues, he switched his phone on to see if there were any messages from his brother. He'd said to message him once he got the flight, but he bet the idiot had forgotten. Again. To his pleasant surprise, however, his phone lit up with unread messages._

**_A-Jie_ **

_never forget I love u so much_

_That was so like his sister. He grinned, quickly typing a response._

**_Me_ **

_luv u too_

_in Seattle now will call when I get to Alaska_

_The other message was from his mother, and he put off reading that one until he’d messaged his brother._

**_Me_ **

_hey idiot_

_u were supposed to txt me when u took off_

_don’t tell me u missed ur flight_

_txt me back when u get this_

_He really shouldn’t have been surprised there was nothing from Wei Wuxian. Hopefully the idiot would have messaged him by the time he gets to Anchorage. He looked at his last message with trepidation, then opened it._

**_A-Niang_ **

_I love you_

_…wait, what? His mother really…? He blinked at the message several times, sure he was seeing things, but no, that’s actually what it said. He couldn’t actually remember the last time his mother had said that to him, and once the surprise wore off, he couldn’t help but grin. Maybe…maybe she was proud of his decision, after all, no matter how much she’d shouted about ‘that ungrateful brat’ (Wei Wuxian) ‘dragging him off on a suicide quest and ruining his future’. He started to reply, then paused, unsure what to actually say. Then he put his phone away instead. He’d call her once he landed safely, and let her know he was alright._

_Several hours later the plane touched down in Anchorage, and an even sleepier Jiang Cheng disembarked and half-sleepwalked his way through immigration and luggage collection._

_“Shit, Shanghai?” said the officer who looked at his paperwork. “I’m sorry.”_

_Jiang Cheng just blinked at him sleepily, mumbling some agreement about the long flight, then made his way out to the terminal. Hauling his bag behind him with one hand, with the other he pulled out his phone to check for messages. Nothing. He frowned, and was just about to send another snarky text to his brother when he looked up and saw one of the TV screens displaying the news._

_He froze instantly, unable to quite process what he was seeing._

_‘Kaiju Malerax attacks Shanghai’ the ticker ribbon at the bottom of the screen read, over an image of a giant leathery monster smashing through a skyscraper, before a metallic fist grabbed it. ‘Killed by jaeger Purple Lightning. Casualties unknown.’_

_As he watched the footage, barely registering the crowded airport around him, he saw the kaiju’s clawed hand rake through another building before the jaeger could block it._

_A building he knew so, so well._

_The Shanghai offices of his family’s company._

_Jiang Cheng dropped his bag, frantically hitting buttons on his phone and shakily raising it to his ear. It rang once, twice, three times._

_“Hi, you’ve reached Jiang Yanli. Please leave a message and I’ll call you right back!”_

_“A-Jie…A-Jie, please tell me you’re alright. Please…call me back as soon as you can. I love you. Bye.”_

_He felt like he couldn’t breathe, that he was being suffocated by the images he was seeing on the screen above him. He called his mother and father, their phones also going to voicemail, and left them similar messages to the one he left Yanli. Then he called his brother. He wasn’t surprised by that one going to voicemail – Wei Wuxian should still be in the air._

_“Wei Wuxian, you…A-Die and A-Niang…A-Jie…you’ve got to call me back as soon as you get this!”_

~~~

Jiang Cheng didn’t realise how tightly his fist was clenched until the stinging pain of his nails piercing the skin of his palm finally broke through his thoughts. His brother never had called him back, never got off the plane in Anchorage, never responded to any of his calls or texts as Jiang Cheng had struggled through those first few weeks of uncertainty and then grief as the Chinese authorities confirmed that both Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan had been killed in the kaiju attack. Jiang Yanli, to Jiang Cheng’s eternal relief, had been severely injured but survived.

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, seemed to have just vanished off the face of the earth.

“You _asshole_ ,” Jiang Cheng whispered vehemently, not for the first or the last time. “How could you have just abandoned me like that? How could you have abandoned A-Jie?”

He slammed his fist on the desk, then closed the file and pushed it away before standing and stalking out towards the combat room.

He just really needed to hit something right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think LXC will finally show up next chapter. If not then, then definitely in chapter 5.


	4. Chapter 4

“I figured I’d find you here.” At the statement, Jiang Cheng looked up from watching the infirmary doctor bandaging his hand to see Wen Qing standing in the doorway. “I tried the combat room when I couldn’t find you in your office,” she added, walking inside, “and MianMian told me you’d torn through another one of the punching bags.”

He just gave a grunt at that, looking back to the doctor fastening the bandage. It was true enough, and didn’t require any commentary from him. With a nod of thanks to the doctor, he stood and looked at the smaller woman.

“What did you want?” he asked her.

“Since we’re both working on this, I thought it might be easier if we both worked in one office.” She gave a small shrug. “It would certainly make it easier, and more efficient to just be able to tell each other as soon as we’ve finished with a file whether the other one of us should read it or scratch that person off the list.”

He thought about it for a few moments as he walked out into the hallway, Wen Qing joining him and walking beside him. She certainly had a point – there was no point in him reading the file of someone she’d deemed inappropriate, and vice versa. And being able to say so immediately rather than meeting up later on would be more convenient.

“My office isn’t really big enough for two people to work,” he said finally.

“Mine is,” Wen Qing responded. “Also, I have a coffee machine…”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her a sidelong glance in response. Using his caffeine addiction against him really wasn’t fair.

“How come _you_ get a coffee machine in your office, and _I_ don’t?”

“Marshal Lan likes me better than you?”

He snorted. “That’s not hard. I’m pretty sure Lan Qiren likes everyone better than me.” Because that seemed to always be the way of things, didn’t it? Whenever it came down to him and someone else, people always preferred the ‘someone else’ over him. Even his own parents. He hadn’t realised how much his expression had darkened along with his thoughts until someone going in the opposite direction took one look at him, yelped, and promptly fled down a side corridor. Jiang Cheng didn’t have much time to do more than register it was a pretty young man who looked vaguely like his brother, and unconsciously took a step after him before he stopped. Of course it wasn’t his brother. Why the fuck would Wei Wuxian mysteriously be here in the Shanghai Shatterdome when he’d been missing for four years?

He turned to Wen Qing instead, frowning down at her. “Who was that and why did he run away like that?”

A raised eyebrow greeted his question. “Mo Xuanyu. Surely you remember him? You and he tried to Drift once.”

“…Xuanyu? I thought he dropped out of the program.” Truth be told, he felt some guilt over that. Not just for having pushed the man out of his memory, but for being the reason for the dropout. The two of them had lasted barely a minute in the Drift before their neural handshake had fallen apart. As it did, he’d felt the Xuanyu’s fear at the deep anger and grief in his mind. Afterwards, the other man hadn’t been able to look at him without flinching, and shortly afterwards Jiang Cheng stopped seeing him around at all.

That had been the last time Lan Qiren had allowed him to try Drifting with anyone. After that, he’d been saddled with teaching trainees. Which was a perfectly respectable position, after all, especially when shortly after that he’d been officially appointed fightmaster of the new Academy branch at Shanghai, and he was certainly good at what he did, but…it still stung, to be training others to do what he had so desperately wanted to do himself, knowing that his chance to get out there in a jaeger had come and gone.

“He transferred to K-science,” Wen Qing was saying. He blinked and looked at her.

“K-science? Then what was he doing in the Academy section?”

“Probably giving the latest behavioural reports to Nie Huaisang.” She gave him a long look. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“…about Huaisang?” There wasn’t anything to talk about with regards to Huaisang, was there? Apart from stealing his class for the afternoon, but despite his complaints that wasn’t really that big of a deal.

“No, idiot. About what’s bothering you so much right now that you’re about to undo all of the doctor’s good work.” She reached out, taking his bandaged hand and forcing his fingers to unclench. He ripped his hand away.

“I don’t need to be psychoanalysed, Wen-yisheng.”

“Jiang Cheng,” she said sharply, and he immediately flinched at her tone. It was almost like he was back as a teenager, and she was yelling at him and Wei Wuxian for dragging her brother, Wen Ning, into trouble again. “I’m not asking in an official capacity,” she continued, her tone marginally softening. “I’m asking as your friend.”

“I’m fine.” It sounded unconvincing even to his ears, so he just shrugged instead. “Anyway, your office, right? You had me at ‘coffee machine’.”

She looked at him silently for a moment longer, then evidently decided to allow him the obvious subject change. “ _After_ you shower,” she said, jabbing him in the chest with one perfectly manicured finger. “Because you stink of dry sweat and bad deodorant.”

“My deodorant isn’t that bad,” he protested.

“Yes. Yes, it _really_ is.” She turned and headed down the corridor towards her office, giving him a wave as she did so. “I’ll see you after lunch.”

**~~~**

Which is how he found himself walking into Wen Qing’s office an hour later, carrying a stack of files almost too high for him to see over, and with damp hair making the shoulders of his t-shirt uncomfortably wet.

Wen Qing’s office was significantly larger than his, which made sense given she was the Academy’s psych analyst. At least half of her office was taken up by a pair of comfortable-looking sofas, an armchair, and a coffee table. He recognised the setup from the sessions he’d had with the Anchorage psych analyst.

The rest of the office was taken up by a desk, currently cluttered with a computer monitor and a lot of files similar to the ones he covered, some bookshelves, filing cabinets, and a sideboard and sink with the promised coffee machine. He promptly dumped the files on the coffee table and made a beeline to the machine.

Behind the desk, Wen Qing leaned back in her seat, putting down the file she was reading and crossing her arms. “Don’t I get a hello?”

“Coffee first, hellos second,” he said, grabbing a coffee cup. “Do you want one?”

“At least you still remembered some manners,” she grumbled, then waved at the cup on her desk. “No, I’m good.”

“This place looks like every therapist office I’ve ever visited,” he commented as he prepared his coffee, “for all the good any of them ever did. The coffee machine, though, is a vast improvement. I might have even stuck with one of them if they’d had one of these.”

It was her turn to snort this time. “It still wouldn’t have done you any good unless you’d actually been willing to open up and give them a chance to help you.”

“How do you know I didn’t and they weren’t just useless?” he asked as he searched around for some milk, eventually finding that one of the cupboards concealed a bar fridge with the aforementioned milk.

“Because I know _you_ , Jiang Cheng. You don’t even open up to your friends, let alone a therapist. Eagleton-yisheng back at Kodiak Island said getting you to talk about anything was like getting blood out of a stone.”

He paused as he stirred in some sugar, not looking at her. “You read my file.”

“No shit. That _is_ my job, you know. Even if I hadn’t, I could have told him that myself.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Silence fell over the room as he carried the coffee over to one of the sofas and sat down. “Tell me this wasn’t just an excuse to get me in for a talk.” He could already feel his jaw clenching at the thought. It wouldn’t be the first time Wen Qing had pulled a bait and switch on him in the name of friendship and his own good, even if the last time had been during high school.

“It’s not – unless you want it to be. You were the one who brought up therapists, after all.”

He shook his head. “You know that I fucking suck at small talk. Next time I’ll just keep my damn mouth shut.”

She frowned at him. “Suit yourself.” She picked up a notepad and threw it across the room at him before picking up the file she’d been reading when he came in. “I’ve started on the ones Alaska sent us. You make me a list of the ones from Shanghai I should look at or ignore – whichever list is shorter. I’ll do the same with the ones I’m going through.”

“Right.” He put his coffee down on the table, retrieving the notepad from where it landed and putting it down next to the cup. “I also want to see how the new ones fight in person before I make any decisions on them – Lan Xichen, too, whenever he arrives. Reading results and reports are good, but seeing them for myself is better.” He picked up one of the files he’d specifically asked for – Nie Mingjue – and settled back to read.

“Jiang Cheng.”

“Mmm?”

“Get your fucking boots off of my coffee table.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't intend for this chapter to turn into the JC & WQ Show, but that's what ended up happening.
> 
> LXC should show up next chapter, unless they run away on me again.


	5. Chapter 5

Lan Xichen ignored the first knock on his door in favour of remaining where he was, staring out of the window onto the grounds. Sunlight dappled the leaves of the trees, and sparkled on the surface of the stream beyond them. Here and there, people moved along the paths, the soft buzz of conversation reaching him. It was peaceful.

As it was meant to be, given what it was. Cloud Recesses Rehabilition Centre was a facility for people like him, people whose scars – both physical and mental – from kaiju attacks required a more extensive recuperation than a Shatterdome infirmary or local hospital was really equipped to handle. Most of the people here were members of the PPDC or their family members, while a smaller but not insignificant percentage were civilians who, for one reason or another, didn’t have anywhere else to take them. In the three and a half years he’d been here, it had almost come to feel like home.

Three and a half years. He leaned on the windowsill, shaking his head slightly. Three and a half years since the hospital had deemed his injuries treated and recovering enough for him to come here. A year and a half for his body to finish recovering and for the physical rehabilition, and a further two years before the psychologists deemed his mental recovery to be at the state where he could return to active duty. Some days he thought he’d been ready earlier, while others – like today – he began to doubt if he really was ready to leave the peaceful confines of Cloud Recesses and return to the world at large. If he’d ever be ready.

The knock came again, polite but insistent. Lan Xichen sighed. “Come in,” he called, arranging a smile on his face as he turned towards the door. If it was yet another nurse or psychologist checking in on him, he hoped he’d be able to hurry them on. The door opened, and when Lan Xichen saw who it was, his smile became a genuine one.

“Wangji,” he said, crossing the room to his brother. The younger Lan was dressed in his usual white slacks and white shirt, the white ribbon around his forehead identical to the one Lan Xichen wore around his own, and his guqin case strapped to his back. “I must have lost track of the time – I didn’t realise your classes had already finished for the day.”

The edges of Lan Wangji’s eyes crinkled slightly, the only change in the neutral expression on his face to indicate that he was pleased at surprising his brother.

“I left class early,” he explained, his voice as unruffled as his expression. “Xiongzhang is leaving today.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Lan Xichen said, guiding his brother over to the chairs. “I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”

“Mn.” Lan Wangji inclined his head, then carefully unstrapped his guqin and set it on the table. “But this way Xiongzhang does not have to wait for me if the chopper comes earlier than expected.”

“And we can spend more time together before I leave.”

“Mn.”

“Thank you.” Lan Xichen smiled as he fetched two cups and the pot of tea he’d brewed not long before Lan Wangji had arrived, bringing them over to the table. As he poured two cups and pushed one across the table to his brother, he spent several moments studying him. Throughout the past four years, Lan Wangji had been the constant that he could rely on. He still felt stabs of guilt at just what he’d put his younger brother through – the younger brother whom he’d promised their mother before her death that he would look after. Instead, it had been his brother looking after him.

“Wangji,” he began, “I’m sorry. These past four years…they’ve been hard on you, as well. I know it has to have been a bother, visiting every day even though you didn’t have to.”

For that was exactly what Lan Wangji had done. From the moment the hospital in Shanghai had allowed immediate family to visit, his brother had been by his bedside. It was one of the few things he clearly remembered as he’d drifted in and out of consciousness. Even once the doctors deemed him out of danger, Lan Wangji had made the three hour round trip from their family home in Gusu to visit him every day. Those daily visits became much easier once he was transferred to Cloud Recesses, since it was also in Gusu, but Lan Xichen knew that no matter where it was his brother would have ensured that he still visited every day, even if it had meant moving across country and going to a different university. Nothing had put Lan Wangji off these visits – not his study load, not exams, not the worst weather, not even Lan Xichen himself. Even when he refused to leave his bed, doing nothing more than curling up in his blankets and staring at nothing, not responding to anyone, even then Lan Wangji had faithfully visited him every day to sit and play his guqin for him.

“It was not a bother,” Lan Wangji said firmly. He gave Lan Xichen a level look. “Not for Xiongzhang. You would have done the same for me.”

Lan Xichen glanced down at his cup, then back up at his brother. “I would. But that doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.” He smiled slightly. “At least now you don’t have to come here every day.”

“I will still do so,” Lan Wangji said. When Lan Xichen raised an eyebrow, he clarified, “I will still come and play for other residents. The doctors say it helps. Especially for the coma patients.”

“Ah, of course.” He’d known that his brother had gradually taken on doing that. As time went one and he became more able to handle being around other people again, he’d even accompanied him on some of these visits. “I’m sure that your audiences appreciate it as much as I do – even if I didn’t always show it at the time.”

Lan Wangji gave him a single blink, then a nod.

“Don’t let it interfere with your studies, especially not now that you’re in your final year,” he continued, then shook his head with another smile. “Although I expect that you’ll pay as much attention to me saying that as you did when I told you the same thing about how often you visited me.”

“It didn’t interfere.” A simple, serene statement. “It will not interfere. I shall graduate soon, then I will join Xiongzhang and Shufu in the PPDC.”

“In Shanghai?” He hoped that his brother didn’t catch the millisecond hesitation before he said the name of the city.

“Mn.” The teacup clinked slightly as Lan Wangji put it down on the table. “Is Shanghai the best place for you?” he asked. His expression hadn’t moved from its usual neutrality, but his eyes reflected the concern that his voice and expression did not.

Lan Xichen looked out the window for a long minute before replying. “Yes.” He turned back to face his brother. “I know you have your doubts, Wangji, but going back to Hong Kong is…” He shook his head. “Too many memories there. I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere in the Shatterdome without constantly being reminded of them. Tokyo doesn’t hold as many memories, but enough to make it…difficult…even if they weren’t already at full capacity. Shanghai’s Shatterdome only came online a little over three years ago. I’ve never been there before.”

“It is still a Shatterdome.”

“Most of the PPDC is based in Shatterdomes. If I avoid them for the rest of my life I may as well quit the PPDC now, and I can’t do that. They need me.” He looked out the window again. “Purple Lightning has been ready for action for over two years now, and she needs me to pilot her.” Not just him, though. Him…and someone else. A jaeger couldn’t be solo-piloted outside of brief emergency situations without severely damaging the pilot, and even in those few emergency situations the pilots hadn’t come out unscathed. He certainly hadn’t. But to have a new co-pilot for Purple Lightning, to let someone into his mind again after what had happened four years ago…

As the silence stretched on, Lan Xichen realised that he was getting lost in his thoughts, and his brother was watching him in silent concern. He looked back again, and gave Lan Wangji a reassuring smile. “It will be fine. I have to get used to being in a Shatterdome again, and both the psychologists and Shufu agreed that a completely new one is best. Besides, Shufu is there, too.”

“What of Shanghai itself?”

It took effort, but Lan Xichen kept his smile in place as he replied. “It’s not like I plan to go into the city regularly. Or at all, if I can help it. Honestly, I think the hardest part is going to be flying over it on my way to the Shatterdome.”

“If Xiongzhang says so,” Lan Wangji said, his voice clearly indicating that he remained unconvinced.

Lan Xichen reached over to clasp his brother’s shoulder. “Wangji. I promise that I’ll be alright. I’ll call you regularly so that you can see for yourself. And after your exams are done, why don’t you come visit? We both know that Shufu won’t say no, especially since you’ll be joining soon yourself.”

“I shall hold you to that.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” Releasing his brother’s shoulder, he sat back in his seat and nodded to the guqin. “Do you plan to play today?”

“If you would like.”

“I would.” Lan Xichen’s expression relaxed into another genuine smile. “Why don’t I get my xiao, and we can play together?”

He got up from the table and cleared the teapot and cups away to give his brother room to set up the guqin while he fetched his xiao from where it was packed in his bags, then sat back down to play. The notes of both guqin and xiao wound around each other in familiar, comforting melodies as the two brothers played, not broken until the sound of a chopper some time later announced it was time for Lan Xichen to depart the Cloud Recesses and face his life once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this time it was LXC who decided to take over! I hadn't planned for his conversation with LWJ to be more than a few paragraphs.
> 
> Next chapter will also be an LXC one.


	6. Chapter 6

_“Shanghai?”_

_“Honestly, I think the hardest part is going to be flying over it on my way to the Shatterdome.”_

Now that he was actually flying over the city, Lan Xichen wasn’t sure if his words earlier in the day were prophetic or a curse. The closer the chopper got, the faster his heart began to beat, until now it felt like it might leap right out of his chest. He leaned back in his seat, placing his clammy palms flat on his knees, and took several deep breaths. In, out. In, out. In, out. Once he felt his heartbeat stablilise and slow to something approximating normal, he felt ready to look out of the window again. He wanted – no, he needed – to see it again. To see how it had also healed over the past four years.

From the direction that they were approaching, many of the buildings looked the same. They would mostly be the same, he knew, since he, Nie Mingjue, and Meng Yao had been able to prevent Malerax from getting far into the city. That it had got into the city at all was still too far, but… He forced the hand that had clenched to relax. Yes, it had got into the city, but it had been contained. Most of the city had been spared. His eyes scanned over the buildings, until they were caught up the decorative logo on one of them.

A purple nine-petalled lotus adorned the side of one building, near the top. He didn’t have to be any closer to know how large the lotus was, or that it was made of steel. He recognised it well.

**~~~**

_The lotus, ripped from the building the kaiju had smashed just before they got to it, was large enough to fit neatly into the creature’s clawed fist. When that fist hammered down on them, it was the lotus that smashed against Purple Lightning’s exterior, right where the CONN-pod was encased inside._

_“These fuckers use tools now?!” Nie Mingjue shouted in disbelief as they twisted to avoid another blow._

_// It’s probably mimicking us. // Meng Yao’s mental voice through the Drift was much like his physical voice, smooth and reasonable._

_~ We did just throw a truck at it to get its attention, ~ Lan Xichen agreed._

_Another blow collided with them, rattling them around in the motion-rig. Lan Xichen wondered if the steel lotus, with its pointed petals, did damage anything like the kaiju’s claws._

_< Thanks, A-Huan, that’s **such** a reassuring thought. > Even Nie Mingjue’s mental voice sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth._

_The comm crackled to life. “Tools…? Oh, I see…” Lan Xichen could just imagine the headshake on the other end. “Geiszler’s gonna have a field day with this.”_

_“He can have a field day **after** we kill it!” Lan Xichen shouted back as they were hit again. He felt his teeth rattle inside his skill, and could feel the gouge in Purple Lightning from the lotus. _

_< When the fuck did kaiju get **smart**? >_

_“LOCCENT, are you sure this one’s a Category III?”_

**~~~**

Lan Xichen blinked and shook his head, bringing his thoughts back to the present. It had been some time since seeing a lotus had brought those memories back so clearly, but then again, this was an identical lotus to the one Malerax had briefly used as a weapon four years ago. The building was further into the city now, though. He supposed that whoever used the purple lotus had decided that moving buildings was a better option than waiting for the original building to be rebuilt.

His gaze wandered towards the harbor. There was a large gap in the buildings that he could see – probably a few blocks of missing buildings, he guessed. The buildings immediately surrounding it looked like a mish-mash of new and of skeletal disrepair. He could still see the claw marks in some of them. Further past it, the buildings were clearly newer ones. That gap must be where they’d finally felled Malerax, and where he imagined its skeleton would still be, much like other fallen kaiju in other cities around the Pacific.

Moments later, when the chopper banked around to adjust its course to go out over the harbour to the Shatterdome, he saw that he was right. Malerax’s skeleton lay in that open area, picked clean by clean-up crews, black-market opportunists, and other scavengers both human and animal. The bones were bleached white after four years’ exposure to the sun, in stark contrast to the darkened and crumbling concrete ground and buildings around them. Now that they were closer, he could see the damage done not just by the battle itself, but by the Kaiju Blue released from Malerax’s corpse, poisoning the area around it. He could see the ribbons and signs marking the Exclusion Zone, and the tiny figures of the many people ignoring them to enter the Zone for reasons as varied as those doing it. Kaiju cultists, street gangs, black market vendors, tourists come to gawk…

Shaking his head, Lan Xichen looked away from the skeleton and past the Kaiju Blue-damaged buildings towards those which have been rebuilt in the past four years. The last time he’d seen the harbour and the buildings that lined the roads from the harbour to where the kaiju’s bones now rested, it had been devastated. Now, with the exception of the Exclusion Zone and the buildings around it, the only thing that gave away the fact that anything had happened was how new all of the buildings looked, and all of them in the latest architecture rather than the mish-mash that they had been. Apart from one, he noted, which looked like…his breath caught.

That building was etched in his memory. He was sure it had been destroyed in the fighting, and yet it looked exactly as he remembered it. Had he misremembered its destruction? Hoped that it had been destroyed, and convinced himself of it? Or had the owners simply decided to reconstruct it exactly as it had been? Whichever it was, he had not expected to see it standing there, a silent reminder of when things had really begun to go so terribly wrong.

**~~~**

_“Lighting,” the voice crackled more than usual over the comms. Purple Lightning had been fighting Malerax for over an hour now, and both jaeger and kaiju had taken a beating. “Lightning, try to pull it further back towards the harbour. The bunkers are all full, but they couldn’t take everyone. Strike Teams are on the ground and setting up an evac zone.”_

_“Roger, LOCCENT.”_

_None of the pilots said anything else aloud as they moved in unison to have Purple Lightning catch Malerax’s wrist as it swung at them. They didn’t need to – with the three of them connected in the Drift, spoken words were unnecessary unless they needed, or wanted, LOCCENT to hear what they were saying. They took a step to the side and tried to haul Malerax past them, but the kaiju dug its pointed tail into the ground, anchoring itself in place._

_// Damn, if our arm-blade hadn’t snapped, now would be a perfect time to cut that thing off. //_

_< Is the plasma cannon recharged? >_

_~ Not yet. ~_

_They moved closer to the kaiju, raising one giant metal foot and stomping down hard on the tail. The end immediately shot up out of the ground, and lashed around uselessly where it was trapped. The other clawed fist swung towards them, connecting with their chest and sending them staggering back a step, releasing the tail but managing to grab hold of the wrist. With both hands now in their grip, they leaned forward and wrestled the kaiju back step-by-step through the wreckage of cars and buildings._

_There were people in that wreckage as well, Lan Xichen knew. He hoped that their slow, hard-fought path back towards the harbour wasn’t taking them through any wreckage where there were people still alive. He hoped that there weren’t many people in the wreckage at all, that they’d managed to evacuate into a bunker or away from danger. He hoped that, but he knew that it wasn’t likely. Malerax had been a lot faster in water than any kaiju before it, and had slipped past them while they were still landing in the water. They’d chased it through the harbour as fast as they could, but it still made landfall before they could reach it, and before the evacuation could get underway._

_// Watch out for that tail! //_

_The warning came a moment too late, as the tail wrapped around one of their ankles and pulled. They stumbled, releasing their grip on one hand as they fell to one knee. Before they could recover and get back up, the kaiju was on their back, biting and clawing at the jaeger beneath it. One claw pierced through the gouge caused by the lotus earlier, and breached the CONN-pod._

_< PLASMA CANNON! >_

_~ Almost there, but I can’t get a clear shot with it on our back! ~_

_Lan Xichen was sure he wasn’t the only one who gave a grunt of pain as the kaiju’s jaws clamped around their shoulder, but it meant the damn thing stopped wriggling enough for them to struggle to their feet, and from there to slam back into one of the buildings to dislodge the kaiju from their back with a screech of torn metal. As they turned to lay one hand on its chest, the plasma cannon recharge finally hitting green, it plunged one clawed hand through the hole it had made in the CONN-pod, tearing the hole wider and wrapping its claws around Nie Mingjue._

_~ A-JUE! ~_

_// A-JUE! //_

_Both Lan Xichen and Meng Yao’s eyes flicked to their partner in horror._

_< FIRE! >_

_“FIRE!” Nie Mingjue shouted at them as the kaiju ripped him out of the CONN-pod, cables and wires dangling in its wake. Lan Xichen felt like something was crushing his chest, a feeling which lifted as he felt Nie Mingjue’s presence ripped from his mind._

_“ **A-JUE!** ” He wasn’t sure if he was the one screaming the name, or if it was Meng Yao, or if it was both of them._

_“Lightning!” the crackled voice sounded both frightened and horrified. “We’ve lost Mingjue…neural handshake between Xichen and Yao failing…down to 50%...”_

_~ A-JUE! ~_

_Malerax’s fist closed around the ranger and rig it had just torn from the jaeger, then threw it to one side. Nie Mingjue’s crumpled form hit the building across what remained of the street, leaving a red smudge against the white stone as it fell towards the ground._

_~ A-Jue… ~_

_“A…A-Huan…,” Meng Yao rasped out, voice shaking._

_// A-Huan… // His mental voice was just as shaky, full of the shock at both the abrupt removal of Nie Mingjue from their Drift, and at the sudden death of their partner and lover. // Plasma cannon…you have to fire. //_

_Plasma cannon. Right. It was charged, had charged just before…_

_Lan Xichen clenched his jaw, moving Purple Lightning’s hand back into position from where it had dropped in shock of what had just happened. Nie Mingjue’s death was not going to be in vain. He fired the plasma cannon directly into the kaiju’s chest, and it bellowed in pain, pushing them away._

_“Neural handshake at 60% and rising.” The relief in the voice was palpable, but Lan Xichen didn’t feel it. He felt something hollow in his chest, where something – someone – was now missing._

**~~~**

“…chen? Lan Xichen!”

Someone was waving a hand in front of his face and calling his name, voice full of concern. Lan Xichen blinked, then blinked again, aware of his heart racing and his breath coming far too fast. His hands were clenched into fists on his lap. He swallowed, took a deep breath, and looked to the young man opposite him with what he hoped was a reassuring smile on his face.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

The young man – what was his name again? Wen Qionglin, that was it. His uncle’s assistant. Wen Qionglin still looked concerned.

“Are…are you sure?”

“Just a bad memory,” Lan Xichen said. He began to smooth out the rumpled cloth of his pants where he’d been gripping them, and focused on bringing his breathing under control. “It’s nothing to worry about, really.”

“Um, okay. We’re about to land.”

He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, before looking out the window again. The city was now behind them, and they hovered above the Shatterdome landing pad. He could feel them slowly descending. To one side of the landing pad, he could make out a ramrod-straight figure in a dark suit. Lan Xichen didn’t have to be close enough to see his face to recognise his uncle, Marshal Lan Qiren. Almost unconsciously his already straight posture straightened a fraction more, and he checked that his forehead ribbon was properly in place. Once done, he gave Wen Qionglin another smile.

“Well. Let’s do this.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am *so sorry* about how long this chapter has taken. Between me not being happy with it and re-writing it repeatedly, and work getting busy as all hell because of coronavirus, this has gone up a lot later than I intended it to. I promise the next chapter won't be as delayed!

“Marshal Lan.” Lan Xichen greeted his uncle with a salute, before quickly but futilely trying to push his hair away as the wind from the chopper blades whipping it into his face.

“Xichen.” Lan Qiren cracked the barest of smiles. “How are you? I trust the flight was good?”

“I’m well, thank you.” He ignored the way Wen Qionglin’s eyes widened slightly at that claim after his reaction to seeing certain buildings, and instead gave both men a reassuring smile. “It’s good to be returning. The flight was as expected.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Anything else Lan Qiren might have added was cut off by the sound of an alarm coming from his watch, which he silenced with a tap and a sigh. “I’m afraid I have a meeting in a few minutes. Wen Qionglin will show you around and introduce you to people, but I hope you will join me tonight for dinner.” He turned to his attaché. “Tell Jingyi to join us as well.”

“Of course, Shufu,” Lan Xichen said with a bow, even as Wen Qionglin murmured, “Yes, Marshal.”

As the marshal strode away, his last comment finally registered with Lan Xichen, who blinked and looked at Wen Qionglin. “Did I hear that correctly? Jingyi is here? _Lan_ Jingyi?”

His cousin was old enough to be part of the PPDC now? His memories of the boy were of a young teenager glued to videogames. Granted, that was five years ago now…or was it six? Either way, the thought of A-Yi being an adult now came as something of a shock.

“Oh. Yes.” Wen Qionglin nodded as he led Lan Xichen away from the landing pad. “Ranger Lan Jingyi. Would you like to meet him first?”

“ _Ranger_?” Lan Xichen shook his head in bemusement, then quickly changed it to a nod. “Ah, yes, please.”

He followed the tall young man over to the building at the edge of the landing pad, his eyes taking in the lines and construction, so much like the same building at Hong Kong’s Shatterdome, and Tokyo’s. As he and Wen Qionglin went inside and stepped into the elevator, he wondered if a tour was all that necessary – Shatterdome construction was fairly universal, after all. He could navigate Hong Kong’s Shatterdome blindfolded, so he was sure he’d have no problem with Shanghai’s.

And that, he hoped, would not be a problem in and of itself. The whole point of coming back to active duty at Shanghai was precisely because it _wasn’t_ Hong Kong. Because while the city might be where he’d lost his old partners, the Shatterdome here didn’t hold the same memories of his old partners that the one in Hong Kong did. That was the theory, at least.

These thoughts kept him occupied as the elevator travelled down, and once the doors open he stepped out without a second thought, dragging his suitcase behind him and automatically turning down the corridor towards where, in Hong Kong, his quarters would have been. A light touch on his arm startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned to Wen Qionglin with an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry. Old habits,” he said by way of explanation.

“It’s fine,” the younger man assured him. “I was going to have someone take your bags to your quarters while we find Lan Jingyi, but I could always show you your quarters first if you’d prefer.”

He thought about it. It was so so tempting so say yes, to take his bags to his new quarters, and then to just…stay there. To beg off having the tour and the introductions just now, to claim that he wanted to unpack, to settle in, to rest. To stay safely shut in his new space, the way he’d been in his old space just a few hours before. He’d rarely gone out into the wider Cloud Recesses facility, and this tour would, inevitably, cause him to be around more people at one time than he had been in years. It was frightening, in a way, to think of being around people again.

But if he hid now, he wasn’t sure how much effort it would take him to stop.

“No,” he said finally, and smiled. “As I said, it was just old habits. Let’s go find Jingyi.”

**~~~**

Stepping into the main central area of the Shatterdome took Lan Xichen’s breath away at first, his throat closing up as he looked around the massive space that was at once new to him and so painfully familiar. He looked up at the LOCCENT mezzanine, focusing on that nerve centre so far above where he stood on the ground, and took a couple of deep breaths before returning to scan the rest of the space with its jaeger bays and Scramble Alley, the deployment ramp down to the Shatterdome’s sea doors.

As he knew it would be, the place swarmed with people and the buzz of voices and activity. Three of the six jaeger bays stood open, the giant robots standing silently inside while people bustled around their feet and across the catwalks that gave technicians access to any part of the machines they needed to get to. Even from where he stood with Wen Qionglin at one of the entrance doors, Lan Xichen could see visible damage to two of the jaegers – the one painted with white and blue clouds was missing an arm and he could see welding sparks lighting up spots on its torso, while the darker one decorated with a giant red sun had repair crews crawling all over its legs. When he looked at the third bay, he wasn’t sure if he was more relieved or disappointed to see that the jaeger there wasn’t his Purple Lightning, but instead another unfamiliar jaeger, this one patterned with black and white snowflakes.

Wen Qionglin followed his gaze. “Frost Flower,” the young man identified. “Our only combat-ready jaeger until you have a co-pilot. The other two are Silent Storm and Eternal Sun. They dealt with a kaiju near Okinawa a few weeks ago.”

“And it was _awesome_!” another voice chimes in. “Hi, Xichen-ge! Hi, Ning-ge!”

Lan Xichen turned to look down at a familiar face grinning up at him, then looked down a little more to see that Lan Jingyi was standing there on crutches. Beside Lan Jingyi was another boy who looked about the same age – surely the pair of them couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen – and who also looked vaguely familiar. The second boy just eyed Lan Jingyi’s enthusiasm and shook his head slightly, before giving a polite bow.

“Hello, Lan-qianbei,” he said. “Hello, Ning-ge.”

“Sizhui. Jingyi.” Wen Qionglin, apparently who the pair meant by ‘Ning-ge’, gave both boys a smile. Lan Xichen looked from one to the other, and also offered them a smile.

“Hello, Jingyi. And Sizhui, was it?”

“Wen Sizhui,” the boy introduced himself.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember him, Xichen-ge?!” Lan Jingyi waved one crutch in indignation. “A-Yuan and I have been best friends for _years_!”

Ah. Lan Xichen blinked, and then gave them another smile. “A-Yuan, yes, I remember that name. Although I don’t think I ever got a proper look at your face, since the pair of you were always glued to a screen while Jingyi shouted insults at whoever your opponents at the time were.”

“He still does, although now it’s inside my head instead of at a screen,” Wen Sizhui replied.

“ _A-Yuan_!” Lan Jingyi gasped, his eyes going wide in mock betrayal. “How could you! I mean, it’s true, but how could you say that!”

Lan Xichen couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at Lan Jingyi’s antics. His cousin might have got a few years older, but his personality certainly hadn’t changed a bit.

“Wen Sizhui?” he said, breaking off the banter. “Any relation between the two of you?” He indicated Wen Sizhui and Wen Qionglin both.

“Cousins,” Wen Qionglin confirmed, and Wen Sizhui nodded.

“Like you and me, Xichen-ge,” Lan Jingyi added cheerfully.

“Speaking of you, Jingyi, what happened to you?” Lan Xichen eyes the crutches that his younger cousin was using.

“I broke it!” This response sounded entirely too pleased, and, judging from the soft sigh Wen Sizhui gave, he wasn’t the only one who thought so. “When we fought Skullsnout and he got behind us and smacked through the CONN-pod because those dumbasses in Eternal Sun…”

“A-Yi,” Wen Sizhui said reproachfully.

“Ah, sorry, A-Yuan, I know they’re your cousins as well, but _you_ don’t like them any more than I do, and if they’d been watching our back instead of holding back to try to make some glorious rescue…”

“ _A-Yi_.”

“Fine, fine.” Lan Jingyi subsided to some muttered grumbling that sounded vaguely insulting from the way he glared at Eternal Sun, then he looked back at Lan Xichen. “Anyway, that’s how I broke it, and it was such an awesome fight, Xichen-ge!”

“It was our first real one,” Wen Sizhui explained. “Which is why he’s so excited about it.”

“I’m glad a broken leg was the worst thing you came out with, then,” Lan Xichen tells them both seriously. “It can get a lot worse than that, so make sure you always pay attention, even if you are supposed to have backup with you.”

“We will,” Lan Jingyi assured him, while Wen Sizhui nodded agreement.

“If you’ll excuse us,” Wen Sizhui added, “A-Yi is supposed to be going to the infirmary to get his leg checked on. It was a pleasure to meet you again, Lan-qianbei.”

“You as well, Sizhui. And you, Jingyi.” Lan Xichen gives both boys a nod as Lan Jingyi hops over to the door, Wen Sizhui by his side and watching him carefully as though he expected his friend to knock into the wall or fall over. He smiled watching them go, shaking his head slightly. Meeting the pair had definitely set him more at east, and he turned back to Wen Qionglin. “So who’s next?”

Wen Qionglin gestures over to Frost Flower. “Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen generally personally check in with their J-tech team at about this time of day. Then we’ll see if Wen Chao and Wen Xu are with their team.” His smile gets a little strained at mentioning the second pair of names.

“More cousins of yours, from what Jingyi said?”

“Unfortunately.” Wen Qionglin sighed. “You’ll see. But let’s go see Frost Flower first.” He gestured towards the jaeger in question, and the pair headed off towards it.


	8. Chapter 8

Even before they reached speaking distance of the people clustered around Frost Flower’s feet, Lan Xichen could tell who the jaeger’s pilots were. Their appearance wasn’t too different to anyone else here, beyond how undeniably attractive they both were, as they wore standard variations of the PPDC uniform – one in a white t-shirt with the Corps logo on it, the other in a shirt of the darkest possible blue that regulation wear came in, so dark that it was almost black. Their demeanors around their team also didn’t warrant a second glance, with both seeming to talk and interact with the crew easily, although the one in white was more prone to soft, gentle smiles while his companion’s expression was more serious.

No, it was the way that they interacted with each other that was the dead giveaway, especially to someone who had had Drift partners of their own. It was the way each obviously knew where the other was without looking, the way the one in white tossed some small item over his shoulder and the other caught it without even glancing away from his conversation with one of the J-techs.

The was that there were slight, gentle touches in passing, ones that made Lan Xichen’s heart ache to see because such unspoken affection was so familiar, and he had been mourning and missing it for so long. The way that they seemed to naturally fit together in a way that he found painful to see. Some might wonder why he found it painful to see with _this_ pair when that same natural fit had only made him smile when it came to Lan Jingyi and Wen Sizhui, and he would wonder in turn how they couldn’t see that the answer was obvious. Lan Jingyi and Wen Sizhui were best friends. Xiao Xingchen and Song Zichen were lovers, and when he looked at the way they behaved with each other he saw his own lost partners.

It was with a small start that he realized that he and Wen Qionglin had come to a stop in front of them, and that he was now the focus of both men.

“Wen-xiansheng,” the one in white said, his voice just as soft and gentle as his expression, “how nice to see you.” His gaze flicked to Wen Qionglin briefly as he spoke, before returning to Lan Xichen, whom he then greeted with a small bow. “Xiao Xingchen.”

“Song Zichen.” The one in dark blue introduced himself almost immediately after his partner.

“Lan Xichen.” He returned the bow. “I just arrived.”

“Ah, yes, Purple Lightning’s surviving pilot,” Xiao Xingchen murmured. “We’re sorry for your loss.”

Lan Xichen felt his throat close up slightly, and all he could do for an initial response was to nod. “Thank you,” he finally managed after a few moments that felt like they stretched on forever.

“It’s a shame that we never had the opportunity to work with you previously,” Song Zichen added. “We were based out of Los Angeles before coming to Shanghai when this Shatterdome went operational. We’re looking forward to working with you now, though, you and whoever your new partner is.”

“Perhaps you have another Lan hiding behind you?” Xiao Xingchen’s eyes sparkled with quiet mirth. “To turn Shanghai Shatterdome into even more of a Lan family affair? At this rate, you’ll soon beat the Wens.”

“Says the man whose daughter is in the current crop of trainees.” Song Zichen rolled his eyes, no less amused than his partner, and Lan Xichen gave them both slightly startled glances. He’d picked both men as being no more than a year or two older than himself, not old enough to have adult children of their own. Xiao Xingchen caught his look and gave a soft chuckle.

“She’s your daughter, too,” he reminded his partner, then, to Lan Xichen, “A-Qing is our adopted daughter. Legally, at any rate. She’s more like a younger sister to us.”

“Unless she wants something,” Song Zichen added, his serious expression breaking into a fondly exasperated smile. “At which point she has Xingchen well and truly wrapped around her little finger as much as any other doting father.”

“Hush, you.” Another smile. “You’re almost as bad.”

“It’s true,” Wen Qionglin confirmed with an amused smile of his own, then gave the two Frost Flower pilots a bow. “While I’m showing Lan-xiansheng around and introducing him, do you know if Eternal Sun’s pilots are here right now?”

“You just missed them.” Song Zichen’s smile faded, replaced with a slightly disgusted frown. “Wang Lingjiao came by to whine at Wen Chao for not paying her enough attention, and he left with her shortly after that. Wen Xu then decided that he should go visit the trainees.”

“He…” There was no hiding the concern on Wen Qionglin’s face. “Didn’t anyone try to stop him?”

“It’s alright,” Xiao Xingchen assured him. “He’s going to be disappointed. None of us felt the need to tell him that all the trainees have a lecture on new anti-kaiju tactics instead of their usual free period.”

“I let Jiang Wanyin know, too,” Song Zichen added. “If Wen Xu tries hazing trainees again, then this time I’m fairly sure that Wanyin _will_ break his legs.”

“It’s not like Eternal Sun will be ready to see action before a broken leg would heal, anyway,” Xiao Xingchen mused.

Lan Xichen just looked helplessly between the three, utterly lost by the conversation. Again, it was Xiao Xingchen who noticed first and took pity on his ignorance.

“Jiang Wanyin is the fightmaster here, Lan-xiansheng,” he explained. “Despite how irritable he appears, he’s very protective of his trainees, and doesn’t take kindly to hazing. Wen Xu is one of those types who thinks hazing is…a rite of passage. They’ve clashed over this before.”

“What my dear partner is politely not saying,” Song Zichen breaks in, “is that Wen Xu and Wen Chao were in the habit of some nasty hazing of trainees before Marshal Lan brought Jiang Wanyin in as fightmaster, and when Wanyin found out about the hazing he kicked their asses from one end of the combat room to the other before threatening to break their legs if it happened again.”

“Jiang Cheng always threatens to break people’s legs,” Wen Qionglin muttered. “It’s how he says hello.” From the nods and chuckles of the other two, Lan Xichen judged that this was not an entirely inaccurate observation. Wen Qionglin then gave another small bow. “If there is a lecture on soon, we should hurry to see if we can get there before it starts,” he said, excusing himself and Lan Xichen, “otherwise there are several introductions that will have to wait until this evening.”

“It’s been a pleasure to meet you both,” Lan Xichen tells the two men, quite honestly. They both struck him as decent people, and ones who could be relied on in the field.

“Likewise, Lan-xiansheng,” Xiao Xingchen replied, while Song Zichen nodded in agreement. “As Zichen said, we look forward to working with you.”

**~~~**

“Even if we don’t arrive in time to introduce you to people before the lecture starts,” Wen Qionglin was saying as they walked through the corridors from the Shatterdome’s central area to the Academy section, “if you feel up to it then you may find it useful to sit in on the lecture and hear about the latest tactics that our assault specialist has come up with.”

Lan Xichen nodded. The suggestion certainly made sense, given that he was four years behind on the developments and tactics for fighting kaiju, and those were among the things he really should catch up on before going back into combat. Before going back into the Drift. Into the Drift, where he’d undoubtedly see his lost partners again, but this time taking a stranger along with him.

That wasn’t fair, he admitted to himself almost as soon as he thought it. Whoever his new partner was might be a stranger to him now, but they wouldn’t be by the time they went into combat together. And they’d have to know each other at least a little before even attempting a Drift – no-one would ever put two complete strangers into a neural handshake.

Whatever else he might have started to think on was cut short by a loud crash, loud enough that he and Wen Qionglin both startled before peering through the door or the lecture hall. The seats were full of men and women, who were all rapidly falling silent as their attention snapped to the front and the young man standing there.

A rather attractive man, Lan Xichen was more than willing to admit to himself, even with the scowl on his face. Dressed similarly to Xiao Xingchen, but with a stronger build, and long hair tied back with a violet ribbon whose ends fluttered down his back as he moved. Behind him, a steel wastebin lay crumpled against the wall, where it had evidently just been kicked with great force.

“Now that I have your _fucking attention_ ,” the man bellowed, “you will all stay fucking quiet and listen. Next person who talks while Nie-laoshi is trying to talk gets their fucking legs broken, understand? Listen to him, and you _might_ not die the first time you go into the field.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and stalked towards a seat in the front row, waving a hand at the lectern and the man standing behind it, peeping wide-eyed over the edge of a fan. “They’re all yours, Huaisang.”

Lan Xichen barely heard that last comment, however, as he had frozen at the sight of the fan. He raised disbelieving eyes up to look at the man holding it, who fluttered the fan briefly before snapping it shut and beginning to speak more words that Lan Xichen didn’t hear as he backed away from the door.

Of everything he thought be might encounter in Shanghai, finding Nie Mingjue’s little brother here was quite possibly the last thing he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soon! Soon they will actually meet!


	9. Chapter 9

_“Aaaah, Mingjue, another one?” Meng Yao sighed as they stepped into the small shop, decorative fans covering every surface. “Surely we’ve seen dozens of things that would be appropriate graduation gifts?”_

_“If you tell us what you want to give Huaisang,” Lan Xichen added, “maybe we can help you more than just tagging along and giving our opinions?”_

_Nie Mingjue shook his head, looking around at the fans with a small scowl on his face. “I don’t know. But I’ll know it when I see it.”_

_“If you’re looking for a good fan, there was that lovely one back at the third shop,” Meng Yao suggested as they looked at the fans. “The one with those canaries on it.”_

_“No.” Nie Mingjue’s response was short and to the point. Then he stopped, looking at a fan displayed high up on the wall. Black, grey, and white, the image painted on the fan was of trees and clouds, and a traditional-style building high up on a cliff edge. The metal guards – steel, or at least something that resembled steel – were intricately carved. When Nie Mingjue asked the shop owner to take the fan down so that he could look at it, he turned it to the other side and looked at the quote painted there in beautiful seal script calligraphy._

_“This is it,” Nie Mingjue said._

_*_

_Any doubts that Lan Xichen might have had about whether that fan, out of the hundreds they’d looked at, was the best one evaporated when Nie Huaisang unwrapped it on his graduation day. There was no hiding the way his eyes lit up as he studied the calligraphy and the painting, and he grinned at the three of them._

_“Thank you!” he said as he snapped it open, addressing the words to his brother but glancing at Lan Xichen and Meng Yao. “It’s **perfect**.”_

_“Mingjue picked it out,” Lan Xichen told him, and the younger boy’s eyes went wide._

_“Da-ge, you did?”_

_“He did,” Meng Yao confirmed. “I lost count of the number of stores he dragged us through to find the perfect fan for you, and once he saw this one, nothing would convince him that anything else was even an option.”_

_“Aaaah!” Nie Huaisang flung his arms around his brother and hugged him tightly. “Da-ge, I love it! You know me so well.” Releasing Nie Mingjue, he stepped back, snapped the fan open, and peered at them over the top, his eyes glistening. “Thank you so much.”_

_*_

_The second time Lan Xichen saw Nie Huaisang peering over the top of that particular fan, the eyes that met theirs over the Skype call looked a little worried, even if his voice was cheerful as he told his brother and his brother’s partners about his acceptance into the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts._

_“That’s wonderful news, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said, giving his little brother one of his rare smiles. It made Lan Xichen smile himself, just watching it._

_“You’re not…disappointed?” Nie Huaisang asked hesitantly. “I know it’s not what everyone wanted me to do…”_

_“Huaisang.” Nie Mingjue’s voice was about as gentle as it got for him. “It’s what **you** want. You’re good at this. No matter what you want to do, I will protect you and your choices, okay?”_

_The worried look eased, the usual spark returning as Nie Huaisang stopped hiding behind the fan. “Thank you, da-ge.”_

_*_

_If Lan Xichen thought that Nie Huaisang was hiding behind his fan that second time, then the third time he saw him peering over the top of it he was definitely hiding behind it._

_It was some months after arriving at Cloud Recesses, and Lan Xichen was laying in his bed, laptop on the small table in front of him. Against all advice, he’d taken to watching old news reports about the aftermath of the Malerax attack, hoping to feel…something. **Anything**. Anything other than the dull grey that suffused all of his waking hours. _

_“I don’t know.” Nie Huaisang’s voice wavered over the laptop speakers as he hid behind his fan, that achingly well-known fan for all Lan Xichen had only seen it a handful of times now. Reporters and cameras swarmed the younger Nie, the only family member of any of Purple Lightning’s pilots that they’d been able to track down – Meng Yao’s mother was dead, his father unknown, and no known siblings. At this point in time, Lan Wangji had been camping out next to Lan Xichen’s hospital bed, and the hospital most certainly wasn’t allowing the press in._

_“Please don’t ask me,” Nie Huaisang said in response to yet another question about what had happened, about how the kaiju had got as far as the city, about how it had managed to kill two of Purple Lightning’s pilots._

_How did he feel about what had happened? they demanded. Did he have anything to say to the families who had lost loved ones in Shanghai?_

_“I really don’t know,” the boy whispered, ducking his face further behind the fan to hide the tears that Lan Xichen could see in his eyes, threatening to fall at any moment._

_The laptop closed with a heavy thud, and Lan Xichen pushed the table away from him. Burying his face in his hands, he finally allowed himself to cry for the first time since waking up in the hospital in Shanghai._

**~~~**

The fourth time Lan Xichen saw Nie Huaisang hiding behind that fan, the last thing that Nie Mingjue had ever given him, was less than a minute ago.

“Lan-xiansheng!” Wen Qionglin was peering up at him in clear concern. “Are you sure you’re alright? That was the second time today. Should I take you to the infirmary?”

Lan Xichen took a few more breaths, then shook his head. “No, it’s alright, really. Just some memories. I knew this might happen.” Wangji in particular had been concerned about it, and his therapists at Cloud Recesses had refused to clear him to return until they were sure that he’d be able to deal with sudden memories like these. Lan Xichen gave another reassuring smile. “But I think I’ll skip the lecture this time and catch up later.”

Wen Qionglin frowned a little, but nodded. “Why don’t I show you the mess hall and we can get something to eat?” he suggested. “Then we can go by the science labs and LOCCENT.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Lan Xichen fell into step beside him, and the two headed down the hall in silence for a few moments before he spoke up again. “Was that Nie Huaisang?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer.

“It is – you know Nie-xiong?” Wen Qionglin blinked at him in surprise. “He joined while you were, um, after, well…” He stuttered over his words, going a touch red with embarrassment.

“After I was injured?” Lan Xichen supplied.

“Yes! Um, I mean, yes, thank you.” The younger man gave an awkward cough. “I hadn’t realised you knew him in that case. He’s our assault specialist.”

“His brother was…wait. Huaisang is your what?” Mischievous, artistic, Nie Huaisang? The boy who was accepted to one of the top fine arts schools in the country? He was so surprised that he missed the start of Wen Qionglin’s reply.

“…Marshal Lan admits Nie-xiong’s a tactical genius…” Wen Qionglin was saying when he started to tune back in.

_Mingjue would be so proud of him._

“…said you knew his brother? He hasn’t said much about his brother, but I know he was killed in a kaiju attack. It’s what prompted Nie-xiong to join the PPDC…”

_But he’d be crushed that it happened because of that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter! I swear to God, they're going to meet next chapter!
> 
> NHS' fan is the one from CQL, because that's such a pretty fan. Also because of the quote on it - some amazing people figured out what it said here: https://hunxi-guilai.tumblr.com/post/613673050378027008/hi-i-have-two-questions-about-words-on-objects


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay on this one. Food poisoning sucks at the best of times. Sucks even more when it's over Easter!

A flash of movement by the door caught Jiang Cheng’s attention as he took his seat, and he looked over to catch a glimpse of what looked to be the ends of long hair and white ribbon disappearing into the corridor. His usual frown deepening, he looked around the lecture hall to see who was skipping out on this lecture. He couldn’t see anyone missing, and a quick headcount confirmed that all of the cadets, both the ones almost through their training and the newer ones who’d arrived recently, were in their seats and paying attention to Nie Huaisang as he gestured at the screen with his fan.

With a shrug, Jiang Cheng sat back in his seat and pulled his phone out. It must have been someone realising they were walking into the wrong room, he figured, pulling up his earlier conversation with Song Zichen to send the man another message.

**_Me_ **

_thx for the headsup earlier_

_cadets all here and accounted for_

_he can go suck shit if he’s looking for them now_

****

**_Zichen_ **

_Glad to hear it_

_But if he’s got it into his head to start that again, he’s probably not going to give up_

**_Me_ **

_he can go fuck himself_

_don’t worry about it_

_me and mianmian have it covered_

**_Zichen_ **

_Xingchen and I will also keep an eye on him when we can_

_Would you like us to tell Jingyi and Sizhui to do the same?_

**_Me_ **

_fuck no_

_jingyi’s reckless enough that he’ll just go challenge him to a fight immediately even though he’s still on fucking crutches_

_tell wen ning if u see him b4 I do_

**_Zichen_ **

_He was here maybe 10 minutes ago with Lan Xichen_

_We mentioned it to him and told him we’d told you about it_

_I’ll let him know you’d like him to help us keep an eye on his cousin_

He frowned at his phone. He’d forgot that this Lan Xichen guy was supposed to arrive today, and he and Wen Qing hadn’t yet finished narrowing down a list of prospective co-pilots. All of that work on top of one class of cadets coming into the last few months of their training and another class having just begun had him completely busy, so _of course_ now was the time the fucking Wen brothers had to start their bullshit again. They were probably annoyed their jaeger was still out of commission and looking to take it out on their juniors. Jiang Cheng gave a slight grunt of disgust as he shot off a message to Miammian letting her know that he needed to go straight to Wen Qing’s once he was done here, before glancing up at the screen.

The sight that met him was from video footage that was burned into his mind, one of the scenes that replayed in his head when he was trying to sleep, and twisted itself into nightmares. As it had four years ago, and as it had far too many nights since, the kaiju Malerax stood in front of the skyscraper that held the Shanghai offices of Jiang Corporation, reaching up with one clawed hand to rip down the purple steel lotus that was the corporation’s logo on the building that a bare minute before it had smashed that self-same fist through. More bricks and glass showered down to the ground, the building shaking again. Jiang Cheng swallowed, closing his eyes before watching the kaiju use the lotus to hammer at the jaeger trying to stop it.

Watching the place and approximate time of his parents’ deaths hadn’t been what he’d expected from a tactics lecture. He knew his mother was still alive at this point of the battle – according to the timestamps on the video footage and on his phone, this was about the point she sent him the last message he’d ever received from her. Had she already received her fatal injuries by now? That, he didn’t know, but he was sure that she knew she was going to die. He couldn’t imagine her sending the message that she had otherwise. Had his father already been killed at that point? Those were questions he both wished he knew the answer to, and hoped that he never would.

Grateful that whatever reason Nie Huaisang had for showing the cadets this footage as part of the lecture didn’t also require the sound of that battle, he opened his eyes again and looked fixedly down at his phone instead, tapping through random apps without looking at them and ignoring the lecture until the lights coming back on and the sound of movement and quiet chatter signaled that it was over.

“Wanyin?”

He looked up from his phone to see Nie Huaisang had come to stand in front of him, hiding behind his fan like usual. The man looked almost…concerned. Jiang Cheng arched an eyebrow, putting his phone away and standing.

“What, Huaisang? Make it quick, I have work to do.”

“Are you alright?”

Well…that wasn’t what he was expecting. He scowled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Nie Huaisang gave a slow, lazy few waves of the fan, but the sharp look of concern didn’t fade. “Your reaction to some of the footage I showed – I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look actually shaken before. And you’ve never switched off like that when I’m presenting new theories and tactics. You’re usually even more attentive than the cadets.”

“I wasn’t fucking…” he began to snap, then stopped, and just scowled again. “I’m fine. Just had other stuff to deal with today.” He waves a hand at the cadets filing out. “Training this lot, working out Drift matches, new pilots, Wen Xu being a fuckwit as usual, shit like that. Don’t worry about it. Look, if there’s nothing you needed me for, I’m going to be late to meet Wen Qing.”

He wasn’t, but it was a good excuse to get out of there. From the look Nie Huaisang was giving him, the other man had seen right through it, but simply gave him a small smile and a nod.

“Of course – come see me when you have a moment, though.” He glanced at the blank screen over his shoulder. “I have some more theories than what I discussed here.”

“Sure.” He cricked his neck with a loud crack. “Fuck knows when, but I’ll drop by.”

“Wanyin…”

He turned and began striding for the door. “See you later, Huaisang.”

**~~~**

A short while after, sprawled over one of Wen Qing’s sofas with his feet danging over the side _(“Boots OFF the sofa, Jiang Cheng! And no, don’t you DARE take them off, I don’t want to smell your stinky feet.”)_ , Jiang Cheng tossed another file onto the table after trying and failing to pay attention to its contents.

“Who was that?” Wen Qing asks, barely looking up from her screen. “And are they a yes or a no?”

“Fucked if I know yet.” He flopped his hand over his eyes. “They could be either, honestly. I’ll know for sure once I can actually see this Lan fight in person instead of just looking at his records and their records.”

“Which you will, but for _now_ can you please make some judgements based on those records of who we should test him with? We can’t just randomly throw cadets at him and see who sticks.”

He lifted his hand and glanced over at her. She glared at him through the blue screen of text and numbers hovering in front of her, before rolling her eyes and picking up her coffee to take a drink. Reaching out, she dragged the record in front of her off of the screen, allowing the next to fill its place.

“How about Xiao Qing?” she suggested.

“No.” There’s no hesitation in his response.

“Oh? We know she’s Drift-compatible with Xiao Xingchen, and his and Lan Xichen’s psych profiles are…”

“No,” he repeats. “She and Xue Yang will make a much stronger team.”

“ _Xue Yang_? And _Xiao Qing_?”

His lips pull back in a rare grin. “If they don’t fucking kill each other first, yes. Trust me.”

She gave a snort in response, her fingers flicking at the record to close it. “Only because you haven’t been wrong about a match yet.” Another flick, and the screen faded out as she took another sip of her coffee and looked at him. “Okay, spill.”

“…huh?”

“Don’t ‘huh’ me. Something happened. What is it?”

His hand flopped back over his eyes. “Nothing.” Even before the word left his mouth, he knew that Wen Qing wasn’t going to let him get away with just that – she never had, with anything, not even when they were kids. Sure enough, he heard her push her chair back and her footsteps cross the room from her desk to the sofa he was sprawled along. He should have expected the sharp jab of her finger into his shoulder, but he still flinched, dropping his hand down the side of the couch and scowling up at her.

“What was that for?”

“You _know_ what it was for,” she retorted, crossing her arms. His scowl deepened, and she just scowled right back at him. After several long moments of trying to out-scowl each other, Jiang Cheng finally sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“Huaisang showed a clip of the Malerax fight during the lecture,” he admitted. “The part where the bastard ripped the lotus logo off the Jiang Industries building.”

“Ah.” She uncrossed her arms, and leaned on the back of the sofa. “How did you take it?”

He snorted. “How do you think? I ended up staring at my phone and ignoring everything else. Even Huaisang noticed something was wrong.”

“How are you now?”

He strongly considered saying ‘fine’, then considered what Wen Qing was likely to do to him for outright lying to her about this. He scowled again at the thought, then shrugged.

“It threw me off a bit, but it’s not like I haven’t seen it before. I just wasn’t expecting it. I’ll be fine, I’ve got work to concentrate on, anyway.”

It was, he had to admit, kind of impressive how Wen Qing’s expression could say so much with just a twist of her lips or a raised eyebrow. He raised his hands in front of him.

“Really, Qing-jie,” he assured her quickly, using the name he hadn’t called her by since their school days. “I swear I’m okay. Let’s just get back to this, okay?” He sat up – or, at least, that’s what he tried to do. Partway up, he felt something yank against his hair, pulling him back slightly as he swore. Twisting a little, he found his hair ribbon tangled on one of the sofa buttons, and he took a moment to untangle it so he could actually sit up.

“Why do you have a sofa with those fucking buttons on it anyway?” he said, rubbing his head. He could feel the tangle in his hair caused by the ribbon and the silver lotus hair ornament it was threaded through, and started to tug them out to redo his ponytail.

“Because that’s what my office was furnished with then I got here,” Wen Qing replied. How the hell could she shrug with her _voice_ , he wondered, moments before she slapped his hands out of the way. “You’re making it worse. Let me.”

Her fingers carefully and deftly untangled the lotus from his hair, pulling it and the ribbon free before she swiped her fingers through his hair, rather less gently combing through the tangles.

“ _Ouch_. You’re a cruel woman,” he complained. “Why am I letting you do this to me again?”

“Because you love me,” she shot back.

“Qing-jie?” a third voice broke in. Wen Qing’s fingers stilled in his hair, and she thrust the ribbon and hair ornament into his face.

“A-Ning!” she said, her voice turning much gentler. “And this would be Lan Xichen.”

Jiang Cheng twisted around on the sofa, leaning back slightly to get a look at the man Wen Ning had brought into his sister’s office while they were both distracted. This was the jaeger pilot who was causing him and Wen Qing so much extra work, huh? The one who’d up and left for four years before coming back.

He found himself looking at a tall man, probably around his height, wearing a perfectly in-order PPDC uniform that was…actually really flattering to the muscular build. Long hair framed what was possibly one of the most stunning faces Jiang Cheng had ever seen, and he’d seen a few – his brother had taken a particular delight in showing him every single one he came across once he’d figured out what his type was.

It wasn’t until he hit the floor that Jiang Cheng realised he’d actually fallen off the fucking couch on seeing this man. But even then, the embarrassment was drowned out by a single thought.

_Oh no, he’s hot._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is what LXC was up to during last chapter.

The mess hall was quiet at this time of the day, something that Lan Xichen was quite grateful for. It meant that he could sit in peace with Wen Qionglin, taking some time to relax and calm his mind after today’s series of surprises before the tour of the Shatterdome continued.

“You look like you’re feeling better now, Lan-xiansheng,” Wen Qionglin said as they finished their tea. At Lan Xichen’s questioning look, he added, “a couple of times today you’ve looked a little pale, but you don’t anymore.”

Lan Xichen nodded. “Thank you. It was nothing to worry about, really. It’s just that coming back is a lot to adjust to. But I’m feeling more settled already.” He smiled, putting his cup to one side. “Science labs next, didn’t you say?” There, at least, he was reasonably sure that he wouldn’t come across any more unpleasant reminders.

After clearing their table, the pair left the mess hall, taking a right turn exactly where Lan Xichen expected that they would.

“Down there is…”

“…the infirmary, right?” Lan Xichen smiled at the look of surprise. “That’s where it is in Hong Kong and Tokyo, too. Probably every other Shatterdome as well.”

“Ah….oh…yes.” Wen Qionglin gave him an awkward smile in return. “You, um, probably don’t even need me to show you around, do you? Well, uh, apart from introducing you to everyone, I guess….”

“That I definitely need you for,” Lan Xichen assured him. “And even if the layout here is like the other Shatterdomes that I’m familiar with, it’s much nicer to re-familiarise myself with the layouts in company, rather than alone.”

Wen Qionglin nodded, pausing in front of the science lab doors, which opened right as he was about to reply. Loud shouting could be heard as a young man hurried out, pushing the door closed behind him while juggling an armful of files. As the top files started to slide off towards the floor, Lan Xichen reached out to grab them and to steady the pile as the man shifted from foot to foot, biting his lip as he looked at them both. Something about him struck Lan Xichen as incredibly familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

“Oh…uh…Wen-xiong! And, uh…” He blinked at Lan Xichen, then noticed him sliding the files back into place. “Oh! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” Lan Xichen gave him a small bow. “I’m Lan Xichen.”

“Mo Xuanyu,” he responded, starting to return the bow, then stopping to grab his files from making another escape to the floor.

“Mo Xuanyu is part of the science team,” Wen Qionglin said. “Xuanyu, Lan Xichen is Purple Lightning’s pilot. He just arrived today.” He gestured to the door, which wasn’t quite dampening out the angry voices beyond. “Is there a problem.”

“No, not really.” Mo Xuanyu pulled a face. “It’s just Gottlieb-xiansheng and Geiszler-xiansheng again.”

Gottlieb and Geiszler? Now those were two more names that Lan Xichen knew.

“What is it _this_ time?”

“Uh…Gottlieb-xiansheng didn’t like Geiszler-xiansheng’s music…” Mo Xuanyu trailed off and flinched at a particularly loud shout, the words of which were still indistinct. “I’ve…uh…got to get these files to Sang-ge and Su-jie. It was nice meeting you, Lan-xiansheng! Welcome to Shanghai!”

With that, he turned and almost fled down the corridor away from the science labs. Wen Qionglin gave a small sigh, shaking his head. “Mo Xuanyu hasn’t done well with people being angry ever since he had a bad Drift experience,” he explained. “Which is a shame. He’s really quite nice.”

“He was a ranger?” Lan Xichen asked. Maybe that was where the sense of familiarity came from, if the young man had been a recent addition before his…injury.

“A cadet. It was towards the end of his training, and on paper Eagleton-yisheng thought it was a good match for Drift compatibility, but…”

“…but in practice, they weren’t compatible at all?” Lan Xichen finished. Wen Qionglin nodded.

“They were compatible enough to initiate a successful neural handshake, but it broke soon afterwards. The prospective partner had some…anger issues…and Mo Xuanyu found the experience of sharing minds with him traumatising enough that he left the program and joined K-science rather than try Drifting again.”

Lan Xichen winced at that. That was a rather severe mismatch, and he found himself hoping that he wouldn’t have any similar unfortunate incidents in his own process of getting a new co-pilot.

“He’s an excellent scientist,” Wen Qionglin continues. “He and Nie Huaisang work quite closely together. Unfortunately, some of the other scientists – well, two in particular – are a bit, um, volatile.”

“I know Geiszler-xiansheng and Gottlieb-xiansheng,” Lan Xichen said. “I’ve never known them to get along.”

“Mn.” Wen Qionglin looked at the door, then at Lan Xichen. “Uh…unless you really want to look through the labs, why don’t we leave them to it and move on?”

“I’m happy to leave the science to the scientists,” Lan Xichen agreed. “I know where to find them if I need them.”

~~~

LOCCENT Mission Control looked exactly as Lan Xichen remembered from Hong Kong, a bustling nerve centre of screens and terminals overlooking the main room. He gave polite greetings to various technicians before Wen Qionglin introduced him to Shanghai’s Mission Controller, a quiet and charming woman named Qin Su. Like Mo Xuanyu not that long before, something about Qin Su struck Lan Xichen as familiar, although not quite to the same extent.

He mentioned this to Wen Qionglin once they’d left and were on their way to the Academy’s section of the Shatterdome. “But I’m sure I’ve never met her before,” he added at the end.

“Ah, well…she’s Mo Xuanyu’s half-sister,” the other man replied. “You must have just noticed some similarities between them.”

“Perhaps…but why did Mo Xuanyu seem familiar to me?”

Wen Qionglin hmms thoughtfully for a moment. “Do you know Jin Zixuan? The head of Jin Enterprises?”

“Know _of_. I’ve seen him on TV. He was all over the news last year when he married the head of Jiang Corporation. And then again when his father died and he took over Jin Enterprises.”

A nod. “He’s half-brother to both Qin Su and Mo Xuanyu.”

“Hmmm.” Lan Xichen frowned. “I suppose that might explain it…”

“Or maybe you’ve previously met one of them in passing?” Wen Qionglin suggested. “Oh, good, jiejie is in!” He stopped in front of a door with the name ‘Wen Qing’ on the nameplate, light sneaking out under the crack. Before Lan Xichen could say anything, Wen Qionglin had opening the door and stepped inside, gesturing for Lan Xichen to follow him.

“…to me again?” a man’s voice was saying from within. Lan Xichen stepped inside, pausing when he saw a woman in a black suit with her back to the door. In her hands she held a violet ribbon, and was combing her fingers through the hair of someone sitting on the sofa in front of her – likely the man who’d just spoken.

“Because you love me,” the woman said as dark hair ran through her fingers. Lan Xichen felt his ears starting to go red, and he shot Wen Qionglin a pleading look for them to leave before they were noticed, as they’d evidently walked in on a private moment between this couple. Wen Qionglin, however, didn’t seem to notice.

“Qing-jie?” he said instead. The woman froze for a moment, then pushed the ribbon towards the man on the sofa, and turned to face Wen Qionglin and Lan Xichen.

“A-Ning!” She gave the young man a gentle smile, which turned to a more assessing look as she turned to Lan Xichen. “And this would be Lan Xichen.”

She didn’t seem outwardly annoyed at being interrupted, for which Lan Xichen breathed a small sigh of relief. He stepped forward to introduce himself properly, only to be interrupted by a loud thump. He gave a startled look at the source of the noise, being the – now empty? – sofa. The woman, whom he presumed was Wen Qing, looked over the edge of the sofa and just shook her head.

“You…did you fall off the sofa?”

“No,” came a grumpy voice from somewhere on the floor in front of the sofa. “…maybe.”

A few moments of shuffling sounds later, the man got to his feet, pushing long hair out of his face – a very attractive face, Lan Xichen had to admit, for all that it was both bright red and bore an impressive scowl. He found himself sympathising with the man’s obvious embarrassment – not only had his girlfriend’s brother and a complete stranger intruded without warning, he’d also somehow fallen off of the sofa in front of them. He gave the man a bright, reassuring smile, which only served to cause both blush and scowl to deepen.

“Are…are you alright, Jiang-xiong?” Wen Qionglin asked.

“I’m fine,” the man responded, his voice sounding just as pleased as his expression looked. As he pulled his hair back and tied it with the ribbon in his hand, Lan Xichen belatedly realised where he’d seen that violet ribbon and this nicely muscled build before – this was the man from the lecture earlier, the one who’d been shouting. A moment after that, he realised that he was not only checking out a man who already had a partner, but doing so in front of her. With a small cough of embarrassment, he tore his eyes away to look back at Wen Qing, giving her a small bow.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Yes, I’m Lan Xichen.”

“We’ve been expecting you,” she said. “I’m Wen Qing, the psych analyst here in Shanghai.”

“Jiang Wanyin,” said the man beside her. “The fightmaster.”

Lan Xichen smiled again. “I’ve heard of you, Jiang-xiansheng,” he said. Jiang Wanyin immediately tensed up. “Song Zichen and Xiao Xingchen spoke highly of you when I met them.” At that, the tension eased somewhat.

“They’re good people,” Jiang Wanyin said.

“Jiang Cheng and I are sorting out the candidate lists for your co-pilot,” Wen Qing said. Jiang Cheng. Lan Xichen filed that away. “I know I would like you to come in and speak with me so that I can get to know you better as a person rather than as a file before I finalise my recommendations, and I’m sure Jiang Cheng would like something similar.”

The man in question nodded, folding his arms in front of him and looking Lan Xichen over. “I want to see how you fight for myself. You’ve been out of the field for four years, after all, with major rehabilitation during that time.”

“The physiotherapists…”

“I know what the physio reports said. _I_ said I want to see for myself. And see how you work with others during training.” He nods to the smaller woman beside him. “Like Wen Qing said, I’d rather see how the man operates, not the file.”

“Of course.” Lan Xichen gave him another easy smile. “Until the Marshal says otherwise, I’m at your disposal. Both of you.”

Jiang Wanyin just grunts at that. “Good. Come to the combat room tomorrow at 8am. I’m sure Wen Ning will show you where it is.”

“Of course,” Wen Qionglin replied.

“It’s a date,” Lan Xichen said, then mentally kicked himself as Jiang Wanyin flushed again, then gave another scowl before stooping to grab some files from the table in front of the sofa.

“I should get going,” he said to Wen Qing. “See you tomorrow. You as well. 8am,” he added to Lan Xichen, then strode out the door.


	12. Chapter 12

_A pair of eyes the colour of dark honey; a flash of white amidst a waterfall of silky hair; a warm smile that had no place being so pretty. All of them spun together, settling in and refusing to be dismissed._

_“Why don’t you just tell him?”_

_He spun, images shifting and changing until he saw the smiling face of his brother in front of him._

_“Huh?” he said, very intelligently._

_“Lai Han. Why don’t you tell him? The graduation ceremony’s over, if you don’t tell him now you’ll never get the chance.”_

_Jiang Cheng looked around, his surroundings solidifying into the grounds of his high school. Around him he could see his classmates, laughing and celebrating the end of high school and the end of the gruelling entrance exams, taking photos with friends and teachers alike. He shook his head._

_“What’s the point? We’re going to be on a plane to Alaska in a month.”_

_“Aaaah, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng.” Wei Wuxian draped himself over his brother’s shoulder, not at all bothered by the half-hearted shove that failed to dislodge him. “Even if it only lasts a month, that’s still something, isn’t it?”_

_Jiang Cheng snorted. “It wouldn’t even be that, and you know it. I know what the answer will be, so why bother asking it?”_

_Zhu Lian’s rejection still stung. Maybe it wouldn’t have stung quite as much if she hadn’t been the first person he’d tried to ask out without being set up by his parents or siblings, or maybe if every single one of_ those _hadn’t also rejected him, but it was what it was. Of course Lai Han wouldn’t be any different, so why put himself through the pain of yet another reminder that no-one wanted him?_

_“One of these days,” Wei Wuxian was saying, still hanging off of his shoulder, “I am going to get you to go on an actual successful date.”_

_Jiang Cheng snorted again, giving his brother another shove and this time managing to push him away. “Yeah, and one of these days you’ll actually date someone at_ all _instead of just flirting with them but backing off at the first sign they might be taking it seriously.”_

_“How do you know I haven’t?”_

_“Because if you had, you’d be even more insufferable than you usually are.”_

_Wei Wuxian grabbed his chest with a gasp of mock offence. “So mean! A-jie, did you hear that? Jiang Cheng is being mean to me!”_

_“A-Xian.” Jiang Cheng turned at the sound of their sister’s voice, soft and amused. “A-Cheng does have a point.” Her eyes twinkle with the same amusement that fills her voice, and Wei Wuxian gasps again._

_“A-jie! How could you?!”_

_“Told you so,” Jiang Cheng told him. He enveloped Jiang Yanli in a hug, and Wei Wuxian quickly got over his faked offence to join them. “It’s good to see you, A-jie.”_

_“I wasn’t going to miss your graduation,” she said. She disentangled herself from them, and pulled out two small boxes, holding out one to each of them. “These are for you.”_

_“Thank you!”_

_“You didn’t have to…”_

_Both boys spoke at once, even as they each took the box offered to them, opening them to see that each held a lovely silver lotus, with a ribbon threaded through it – Jiang Cheng’s ribbon a deep violet, while Wei Wuxian’s was a bright red._

_“Since you both said you planned to grow your hair out after graduation,” Jiang Yanli said, “I thought you might like something to wear in it that reminded you of home while you’re off saving the world.”_

_The violet of the ribbon bled into the silver lotus, until it replaced the silver entirely, the lotus growing and growing in size. It was in front of him, now, and above him, held in a giant clawed hand as it hammered at the jaeger in front of it, while beside them chunks of glass and concrete fell down to the ground. There were holes ripped in the building that the lotus had been torn from, exposing the offices inside – or what remained of them, anyway, since some of them had been part of the debris raining down to the ground, while the ceilings of others had collapsed._

_He looked, and looked, and could tear his eyes away, barely even reading the ticker that was across the bottom of the screen, barely feeling the tiles beneath his feet, or the phone pressed against his ear. That’s where the ringing he could hear was coming from._

_This time, the ringing stopped as someone answered, and he heard his father’s voice._

_“This is all your fault.”_

_“Wh…what?” Jiang Cheng stammered. The purple lotus on the screen in front of him shifted, and there was an actual lotus now right in front of his eyes. He blinked, and found himself standing on muddy ground._

_“I said,” Wei Wuxian repeated, lightly tapping him over the head with the lotus, “that this is all your fault.”_

_“What’s my fault?”_

_“This!” Before he could react, his brother had tossed the flower aside and pounced on him, sending them both sprawling into the shallows of the lake._

_“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng spluttered as broke the surface. Wei Wuxian’s head popped up a moment later, the boy shaking wet hair out of his eyes as he laughed._

_“Ah, don’t be mad, Jiang Cheng! Since I’m leaving for Beijing tomorrow, this was my last chance to do this! Who knows when we’ll be back here once we’re rangers?”_

_“Well, whose fault is that for taking off on a trip to Beijing with his friends instead of spending a last couple of weeks at home before we go to the Academy?” Jiang Cheng huffed, standing and squeezing water out of his shirt. He grimaced at the mud over their clothes. “A-niang is going to kill us.”_

_“How is she going to do that,” Wei Wuxian asked, “when you’ve killed her?”_

_“What the fuck are you talking about?!” Jiang Cheng spun around to confront his brother, only to find his brother bow behind him._

_“You killed her, Jiang Cheng. Her and A-die. You’re the reason they were in Shanghai that day, taking_ you _to the airport, seeing_ you _off. They wouldn’t have visited the Shanghai office until the following week otherwise.”_

_Jiang Cheng spun around again, only to find that, again, Wei Wuxian was behind him. “That’s not true! And where were you?! You abandoned us! You vanished!”_

_“You know it’s true. You should have come to Beijing with me. Then they wouldn’t have been in Shanghai. A-jie wouldn’t have been in Shanghai. And you would have been with me, nothing would have happened to me, you could have made sure we got on the plane together.”_

_An inarticulate howl of rage echoed in his ears for several moments before Jiang Cheng realised that it was coming from him, and he spun again, swinging his fist at Wei Wuxian. His fist went right through Wei Wuxian and collided with a tree trunk. Wei Wuxian vanished, along with the lake, and Jiang Cheng found himself standing in a cemetery, two familiar headstones only a few meters away. He punched the tree again, and again._

_“Wei Wuxian! Come back here!” he screamed as his knuckles scraped on the bark, just as they’d done four years ago when he’d screamed these same words just after his parents’ funeral. “Where are you, you bastard? Why have you abandoned us? Why aren’t you here? You should be fucking here!” He punctuated each statement with another punch, before slowly sinking to his knees. “You should be here…you can’t leave me to do this alone…”_

**~~~**

Perhaps it was the gentle chiming of a bell that woke him, or perhaps it was the sting in his hand from where he’d flung it against the wall in his sleep, but either way, Jiang Cheng found himself awake, tangled in his blankets and his face wet with tears. The numbers of his clock, the only light in the room, told him that it was 5:17.

He lay there for several moments, taking several deep breaths, then reached out to the bell that hung beside his bed. He wrapped his fingers around it, stilling its chiming, and held it for several moments more. He could feel the lotuses carved into it, a soothing reminder of home. He released it, tapping it lightly to set it to chiming again, and reached out to turn the lamp on.

It had been awhile since he’d had a dream like this, but he knew there was no point in trying to get back to sleep after one of these. Blinking against the light, he untangled the blankets and swung his feet around to the floor. Might as well get an early start to the day and keep active enough to push the dream from his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BTW, anyone is always free to come shout at me about MDZS (or other fandoms) over on [tumblr](https://merinnan.tumblr.com/)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Removed the Major Character Death tag as it was there due to historical character deaths which ended up not being as detailed in the flashbacks as I'd originally planned. If that changes, I'll put the tag back.
> 
> Also, apologies for the delay. Between being one of the five people deemed 'essential' by my workplace and a bout of tonsilitis, this month has been hell so far.

When Lan Xichen stepped into the training room just before 7:30 that morning, he didn’t expect to find anyone else there. Upon opening the door, however, he found the lights already on, and Jiang Wanyin determinedly attacking a punching bag in the far corner of the room. A shorter woman held the bag steady for him – or as steady as she could, given how hard he was hitting it. Like Lan Xichen, both Jiang Wanyin and his companion were dressed in loose pants and form-fitting tank tops, unlike him, both were barefoot.

He stepped out of his shoes and walked quietly across the room to them, getting close just as Jiang Wanyin delivered a particularly vicious roundhouse kick to the bag, sending the women stumbling back a step or two.

“You’re in a mood this morning, Wanyin,” she commented. “I’d almost think that this poor bag has personally offended you in some way.”

“You never know,” Jiang Wanyin grunted as he delivered another punch. “Maybe it has.”

A snort of laughter escaped Lan Xichen before he could stop it, and he quickly covered it with a cough and clearing his throat as Jiang Wanyin turned to him, his face flushed from his workout and his breath coming heavily. Lan Xichen cleared his throat again, dimly aware that the woman had let go of the bag and stepped around it.

“I hope I never offend you as badly as the bag did,” he says, giving them both a smile. The woman chuckled in return, but Jiang Wanyin just gave a scowl just as fierce as his ones the day before.

“You’re early.” The words almost sounded like an accusation.

“…sorry?” Lan Xichen blinked, and tried another smile, which seemed to go down just as well as the first did. The other man simply huffed a little, and began working loose the strap of his boxing glove with his teeth. In order to make certain he wasn’t staring, Lan Xichen turns to the woman and gives her a small bow.

“I’m Lan Xichen,” he introduced himself.

“I know,” she replied. “I’m Luo Qingyang, Wanyin’s second. Nice to meet you.”

“You as well, Luo-guniang.”

“Since you’re here early, we may as well get started early,” Jiang Wanyin said. “Go get warmed up.” Before Lan Xichen could even think to protest at being spoken to like he was a student again, Jiang Wanyin had turned to Luo Qingyang. “MianMian, give me a hand to get the mats out.”

~~~

When Jiang Wanyin called for a break an hour and a half later, Lan Xichen was fairly sure he’d run through almost every exercise he’d done in physiotherapy, in addition to most of the forms and exercises he remembered from his own Academy days. The entire time, Jiang Wanyin had circled him, studying his every movement with a critical frown, and the occasional comment about his stance.

“I’ll get you to do some one-on-one matches with me and MianMian,” Jiang Wanyin said, “and with some of the cadets when they…what the fuck are you doing here?”

That last question was addressed to a handful of men and women in cadet uniforms, who were leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor watching them. One, a young woman with milky white eyes, flashed him a bright smile.

“We heard you were working with the new ranger, Shifu,” she chirped, “so we thought we’d come watch.”

Jiang Wanyin crossed his arms in front of his chest, and scowled at the small group. “I know for a fact you all have Pons training right now, so again, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Sooo…funny story,” another cadet drawled, this one a young man with an almost childlike appearance who was lounging on some of the unused mats piled against the wall. “It turns out that if you break curfew to go drinking, then show up to Pons training with one hell of a hangover, and your classmates suggest the Ivodius simulation for you, and you misstep in the simulation so that Ivodius picks you up and throws you, then what happens is you vomit all over everything.” He smirked, showing the tips of his canine teeth. “To cut a long story short, Shifu, class got cancelled while they clean all the barf out of the simulation pod. And before you ask, no, I’m not the one who vomited.”

“He is one of the ones who snuck out and got drunk, though,” the girl with the milky white eyes muttered. The smirk turned into a scowl.

“Fuck you, xiao xiazi, you promised not to tell.”

“And you promised not to fucking call me xiao xiazi, yet you did, so whose fault is it really, Xue Yang?”

As the pair began to bicker, Lan Xichen raised an eyebrow at Xue Yang’s nickname for his fellow cadet. The girl evidently wasn’t blind – she never would have got into the Academy otherwise – so he wondered where the name came from. From her odd eye colouration, perhaps. That seemed to be the most logical guess.

“Both of you shut the _fuck_ up!” Under Jiang Wanyin’s scowl, the bickering quickly ceased. “You can stay as long as you all behave yourselves.”

“Yes, Shifu,” they chorused. Jiang Wanyin turned back to Lan Xichen.

“First to three takedowns?” he suggested.

“Certainly.” Lan Xichen smiled, and gave a small nod. As they prepared, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that a few of the cadets had quickly pulled out phones and were typing out messages, and, by the time he and Jiang Wanyin were standing opposite each other in the middle of the mats laid out on the floor, the number of cadets sitting or standing along the wall had almost doubled with more trickling in. He chuckled to himself, in contrast to the noticeable eyeroll from Jiang Wanyin when the fightmaster glanced at the cadets and saw how many were now present.

The mats were cool under Lan Xichen’s feet as he and Jiang Wanyin slowly circled each other, neither one looking away as they assessed for weaknesses and openings, trading a few testing blows here and there. The quiet chatter of their audience of cadets faded into background noise, along with the sound of the door opening and closing several more times.

It was hard to say who moved first, but the cautious, testing blows soon changed one both sides to ones that were fast and precise, some landing but many more dodged or knocked aside. Lan Xichen soon found himself in a position where he was too occupied with blocking Jiang Wanyin’s punches to be able to return any. With how focused his opponent was, Lan Xichen thought he saw an opening to deliver a kick…

…only to find himself flat on his back as Jiang Wanyin caught his foot and _yanked_ , toppling him to the floor before he had a chance to regain his balance. He was soon back on his feet, and in less than a minute saw his opening to return the favour. He ducked in under Jiang Wanyin’s hits, wrapping his arms around the other man’s waist and lifting him up. Despite how well-built he could feel the man was – a thought that brought a flush to his ears – Lan Xichen could easily lift him and then toss him down.

Jiang Wanyin blinked, looking a little surprised at just how easily Lan Xichen had picked him up. His usual scowl softened to something almost approaching approval before he gave a small nod and got back to his feet, circling Lan Xichen with a little more caution this time. Now that they had a bit more of each other’s measure, it became harder to find openings for another takedown for either of them, instead both trading flurries of blows and kicks, blocking and ducking and weaving as they danced around the mats. Dimly, Lan Xichen was aware of applause and cheers whenever one of them managed to land a particularly good hit, and could hear voices exhorting one or the other of them on, but most of this was lost in the sound of his own heartbeat and breaths, both of which sounded louder now than anything else.

He kept his eyes on Jiang Wanyin, watching the man’s sharp grey eyes on him in return, the rise and fall of his chest, the slight sheen of sweat over his skin as they fought back and forth, and the way strands of hair stuck to his forehead and neck. Seeing a similar opening to before, Lan Xichen ducked in to grab the man around the waist, then felt an arm around his neck as Jiang Wanyin grabbed him in a headlock. After his attempts to shake it off failed, Lan Xichen attempted instead to get under Jiang Wanyin and throw him over his shoulder. It almost worked, except the other man didn’t let go, and they both ended up in an ungainly mess of limbs on the ground.

As they disentangled themselves and got back to their feet, Lan Xichen shot a glance at their audience, and almost missed the resumption of the fight due to his surprise at how large it had grown. It now no longer consisted just of cadets, but of other PPDC personnel as well. He was sure he recognised some of the J-tech crew from his tour the previous day. Wen Qionglin had also arrived at some point, standing next to MianMian and leaning down to listen to the smaller woman’s commentary.

He wasn’t sure just how long they traded blows for this next time – it certainly felt like longer, but that may have just been his mind playing tricks on him, as his breath began to come harder and faster the longer they fought. This was something he was going to have to work on, a part of his mind noted. While he’d built back his muscles and reflexes, it seemed his stamina wasn’t quite to where it used to be. It was probably good enough once he was in a jaeger again, but…

He ducked under Jiang Wanyin’s fist, wrapping his arm around the fightmaster’s to pull him into an arm lock, and found himself pulled into a grapple in return. The two of them wrestled briefly, neither quite able to get the advantage, before an attempted trip brought them both down together again, this time with Lan Xichen sprawled on top of the other man. He dearly hoped that the flush he could feel in his ears and face would be put down to exertion from the fight, and scrambled back up to his feet as quickly as possible.

“Hey, Shifu!” Xue Yang shouted from where he continued to lounge on the pile of spare mats. “Isn’t that three each now?”

Jiang Wanyin didn’t reply, just grunted slightly as he also climbed to his feet. “One more as a tie-breaker?” he said. Lan Xichen nodded again.

“Seems fair.”

Both men took a moment to catch their breaths, then dropped back into circling each other and trading blows. The more they repeated this pattern and the longer they fought, the more Lan Xichen was sure he could feel a certain connection between them. He wondered if Jiang Wanyin also felt it – the man certainly didn’t give anything away behind that scowl and those intent grey eyes. But with each shift one way or another, each anticipated hit and dodged blow, the more they seemed to fall into sync with each other.

Thus, it came as no surprise to Lan Xichen when, instead of one managing to toss the other to the mats and break the tie between them, they again ended up on the floor at the same time.

“I think we can just call it a draw,” Lan Xichen said as they climbed to their feet again. This time, it was Jiang Wanyin nodding at the suggestion.

“Fine. Good match.” He gave a small nod, then turned to their audience. “Since you’re all here early,” he roared at the cadets in the group, “I’m going to assume that you’re all eager for some extra training. Off you go and get changed, now!” He pointed towards the changing rooms, then, as the cadets groaned and slowly began to move, strode forward and began shooing them along.

While Jiang Wanyin was occupied with herding the cadets, Lan Xichen wandered over to join Wen Qionglin and MianMian.

“That w..was impressive, Lan-xiansheng,” Wen Qionglin said, offering him a small smile. “I haven’t seen anyone fight Jiang Cheng like that since Wei…” He abruptly clamped his mouth and shot Jiang Wanyin a worried look, one which faded to relief as he saw the man was too preoccupied to be paying attention to them.

“Wei…?” Lan Xichen prompted. Wen Qionglin and MianMian exchanged glances, then Wen Qionglin turned back to him with a small wince.

“Wei Ying. Jiang Cheng’s brother,” he explained. “He was the only other person I’ve ever seen consistently fight Jiang Cheng to a draw like that.”

“Aaaaah.” Lan Xichen nodded, then paused. “Was?”

“He…uh…” Wen Qionglin floundered for a moment, shooting Jiang Wanyin another look to make sure the man was still busy shooing cadets off to get changed. “He was supposed to come to the Academy with Jiang Cheng, but he…disappeared. We don’t know what happened. Jiang Cheng doesn’t like to talk about it,” he added hastily, “so please don’t tell him I told you?”

“I won’t,” Lan Xichen promised. He tilted his head to one side, watching Jiang Wanyin shoo, shout, and otherwise harry the cadets along as he considered what Wen Qionglin had just said. So, the fightmaster had originally been a cadet at the Academy himself, then? He wondered how far Jiang Wanyin had got through the program and if, given the way they’d so easily fallen into anticipating each other’s moves, there was any way the other man could possibly be one of his co-pilot candidates. He found himself hoping very much that that was the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> xiao xiazi = little blind
> 
> Me, after rewriting the fight scene in this chapter for the sixth time: I hate writing fight scenes, someone shoot me if I write another one.  
> Also me: Okay, time to start thinking about how to choreograph the other fight scenes in this fic...


	14. Chapter 14

AUTHOR NOTE

(This isn't a chapter yet, I'm sorry!)

Hi guys, I'm so sorry that this has gone so long without an update. Pandemic lockdowns where I live basically doubled my workload, and while I squeezed out a bit of writing here and there this year, I have not had time to give this one the attention it deserved.

Nano got me properly back into writing space, and the fic I was writing during Nano will soon be finished up. Once it's done, Nevermore is my priority to finally get finished! My current plan is to get it close to the end before I start posting new chapters, so that I can give you a set schedule of when those chapters will be up, instead of me haphazardly throwing them up as I finish them. The fic itself I know exactly where it is going and what story beats I still have yet to hit, it's just a matter of getting the words on the page!

Thank you all so much for reading and for your patience, and I hope to start posting chapters again soon!


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